


Overdrive

by AnonGrimm



Series: Equilibrium: of Cruelty and Pain (Sabretooth) [1]
Category: Sabretooth - Fandom, Victor Creed - Fandom, X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Felching, Graphic Sex, Hunting Humans, Misogyny, Oral Sex, Rimming, Sexism, Tribute Fic, extreme violence, “foul” language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-04
Updated: 2015-12-26
Packaged: 2018-04-18 23:12:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4723799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonGrimm/pseuds/AnonGrimm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sabretooth’s night runs off the rails when he meets a woman named Bonnie at the end of an assassination job. He interrupts a group of undead men as they are trying to kill her and it appears they will be hard to kill. He steals her to get answers, and then gets the shock of his life when she seduces him. He promises to keep her with him, to keep her safe – but the undead soldiers are now trying to kill them both. This story is a reprise of the canon limited series, "Mary Shelley Overdrive" (2002), written by Dan Jolley, and fills in the blanks between panels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Longest Night

**Author's Note:**

> Please do not post this story anywhere without the author’s permission. Thanks. Feedback and constructive critiques are welcome, too. Just comment, email me at anongrimm@msn.com or tweet: @MET_Fic
> 
> Sabretooth is a gleeful villain and I don’t plan to redeem him here; if you like evil main characters, enjoy! If not, you might want to re-read the tags...
> 
> My Sabretooth is based on the blonde mutant in the comics, in particular the version of him when they draw him sexy and write him as an intelligent, though brutal, character. Rather than make this note as long as the story, you can get more details at my personal fanfic blog: mindseyetheatre.net or look up Sabretooth on the Marvel Comics wikis and databases.
> 
> TIMELINE: This story occurs a little more than a month before the events in my “Redemption” tale, and the first comic book shows a full moon, which makes it the Saturday night of September 21, 2002. (This may be a clue to how anal I am about details.)
> 
> *****************************************************************
> 
> Tribute Note: In the canon Sabretooth limited series, "Mary Shelley Overdrive" (Nov. 2002, written by Dan Jolley), Victor meets Bonnie Hale and the undead men who are trying to kill her. This story is my tribute to the comics story. It is also a blatant excuse to fill in the carnal blanks that the comics couldn’t show, and perhaps add in some details they couldn’t take the time to explain. This is my favorite Sabey story and it influences my Sabey tales quite a bit, here and there. I highly recommend it as an excellent read. Needless to say, this story will have a critical mass level of spoilers for the comics; if you want to read the comics first and then come back here, I’ll wait for you. :) Thanks for reading. – AnonGrimm (@MET_Fic)
> 
> *****************************************************************

Here I stand  
helpless and left for dead  
Close your eyes  
so many days go by  
Easy to find what’s wrong  
harder to find what’s right  
I believe in you, I can show you  
that I can see right through  
all your empty lies  
I won’t stay long  
in this world so wrong

Say goodbye  
as we dance with the devil tonight  
Don’t you dare look at him in the eye  
as we dance with the devil tonight

Trembling, crawling across my skin  
Feeling your cold dead eyes  
stealing the life of mine  
I believe in you, I can show you  
that I can see right through  
all your empty lies  
I won’t last long  
in this world so wrong

Say goodbye  
as we dance with the devil tonight  
Don’t you dare look at him in the eye  
as we dance with the devil tonight  
Hold on  
Hold on  
Goodbye

~ Dance With the Devil (Breaking Benjamin)

*****************************************************************

New York City glittered in the dark outside, framed by the expensive panoramic windows. Inside the spacious apartment, only the television screen lit the room as it displayed the slightly bouncing paused video game image of a squirrel surfing through sharks. The television was also the only expensive thing in sight. The rest, décor and clutter, even the furniture, looked like the decorator had been a sullen teen boy.

The blood of two out of three men pooled on the cheap knock-off Persian rug. The taller one was propped up on the overturned chair he’d been sitting in. His dripping guts hung down on one side. The heavy one bled a lot less, but most of the limbs had been twisted and bent into creative and unnatural shapes and directions. The neck had snapped with a delicious crunch.

They stared with fixed and clouding eyes at the ceiling, untroubled by the sharp stink of piss blooming in a spreading stain over the denim crotch of the man they’d been paid to protect. He sat on the couch and held his free hand up, palm out, as if he hoped to surrender. The stern faces on the t-shirt he wore could be seen as silent witnesses.

_I do love an audience._

“Please … you’ve gotta understand, I… Oh, God… I can – I can pay you, I can pay you more! More, I can double what they’re giving you!”

Victor Creed stared down at the mark through his dark shades. The allegedly brilliant game designer who had tried to sell his latest idea to two rival companies was about to die as he’d probably lived – with a game controller in his hand and his stupid baseball cap on backward.

Cracking his knuckles, Victor replied, “Don’t even bother.”

“I, no, I –”

Lunging and slashing, Victor opened up the babbling fool across the belly and the throat. Just for fun, he broke the neck – so that he’d be found staring at the ridiculous bouncing squirrel. The hand clutched the controller as blood began to rain down on it.

He left and went down the hall to the stairwell. No other doors opened, despite the noise he’d made. He could feel eyes on him through a couple of peepholes, but his latest costume of biker wear combined with his savage feral attributes seemed to be an instant cure for curiosity.

At the stairwell door, he lit a cigarette. “Bodyguards. Heh,” he muttered, smiling as he took a deep drag. Entering the stairwell, he paused a few steps down and leaned on the wall to smoke. Laying his head back, he sighed.

Taking in a breath, he caught a bizarre scent coming from the bottom of the short flight of stairs. Without a thought, he followed it down and around a corner to another set of stairs that lead up to the roof access door.

The tacky apartment he had just put back on the market was a penthouse, most of it sitting higher than the roof to take advantage of skylight windows. Most of the roof space was used by building residents to have cookouts, or grow plants.

At the top of the stairs to the roof, the bizarre smell was stronger. He could scent a mix of metals, bricks, glass, plants, water, a female … and cadavers – very strange cadavers. Victor leaned around the railing to stare upward.

“What tha hell?”

Climbing up and opening the roof access door, he stopped in the doorway and stared. Some sort of special ops soldier, the source of the cadaver smell, had taken cover in a squat. He held a gun with silencer out and ready – and he was watching a blonde woman water and prune plants in the moonlight.

Blowing out smoke, Victor grunted. “Huh. Weird.” He turned and went back inside, leaving the door open.

He barely heard or saw it before a knife was thrown and lodged in his throat, pinning him to the wall behind him. His shades and cigarette went flying as his body slumped in shock.

Another soldier, also reeking of dead flesh, had come from the stairs and thrown the blade. He picked up a radio and spoke into the headset worn by the one on the roof. “Aleksander – complication here.”

“Complication?” Aleksander whispered.

“Witness. Well, ex-witness. Hold off on the girl for a moment. This fellow is huge, we’ll have to –” He was interrupted when Victor recovered and threw the knife back. He easily dodged it, though any normal human would have caught it in the eye. “Whup – revise that assessment –”

Victor launched at him, claws out. He paid no attention to the Russian KMP compact submachine gun the man held. “Ya sonovabitch!”

His claws stabbed through the lapel of the military jacket, his hand fisting in it; he struck his forearm across the chest to smash the head into the wall. His other hand pulled back to slash in over the face. Looking down, Victor’s eyes narrowed as he growled. The face was scored with criss-crossing clawmarks, but they were shallow – and did not bleed. The skin had barely been scratched.

Staring up at Victor from where he’d been dropped onto his back on the landing, the man spit out, “Filthy mutant.” Lifting the KMP AEK-919 SMG, the man opened fire into Victor’s upper body and leg.

The attack threw him out onto the roof. The first man turned and shot him with his pistol the moment he hit the floor. Victor leapt up and slashed the weapon into pieces when that man came after him.

“Aaaah!” He screamed when he was stabbed, but he wouldn’t die. As Victor turned to face the one with the AEK-919, the man behind him laughed and shouted, “It is fantastic, Piotr! Not even any pain!”

Victor stopped, claws ready. The two men who smelled dead held pistols on him; Piotr with the scratched face was taller, and might be in charge.

Piotr glared at him. “I know you. I have read of you. Creed, isn’t it?”

Distracted by her scent, Victor saw the woman take cover by the AC/heating unit. She crouched behind it and watched.

Piotr almost sounded regretful. “Wrong place, wrong time, Mr. Creed; this really is a shame.” Victor roared and charged them. “Your bones don’t break…” As Victor reached out to grab his throat, the soldier was fast enough to snag his wrist and brought his elbow up sharply under Victor’s. “What about tendons? Ligaments?” They all snapped as the arm was bent backward. The force used was so strong that it tore the black leather biker jacket sleeve as easily as the rest.

Victor screamed before rage turned it into a roar of hate.

Aleksander stepped in and struck under his chin with the heel of his fist. “Perhaps he prefers simple strength to finesse.”

The metal over Victor’s jaw rang from the hit, his eyes rolling back in his head. Fangs and carnassial teeth cut into the inside of his cheek and sprayed blood as the blow knocked a smaller fang from his mouth. His injured arm hung useless, and punching his metal jaw hadn’t slowed Aleksander down.

Piotr moved in and used an elbow strike to punch him in the side of the neck, dropping him down. “Enough playing; use your knife – see if he can grow new entrails.”

Victor used his legs to shove his body up and backward to gain some space. “It’ll take more’n ya two.”

Grabbing his injured arm by the wrist, he snarled as he shoved the hand and forearm back against the mess of the elbow joint inside his torn jacket sleeve. The second the flesh touched, it began to heal and reconnect.

The woman was still watching, but she was about to lose her cover. Victor jumped over to the huge metal AC/heating unit, got his claws and fingers into it, and tore it up off of the roof with an ear-splitting screech of crushing metal and snapped bolts. The woman ran for the edge of the roof to get out of the way when he threw it at the dead men.

It smashed into them, the metal a crushed heap of sharp edges and wires. Victor was on them the second they were down. Picking them up by their throats, he hissed over Piotr’s scratched face. “Squeeze yer head off, ya li’l turd.” He growled, lifted them bodily over his head, and mashed their skulls together.

For a moment, he thought he’d killed them; their stench was overwhelming. Then movement behind him and a sharp sniff told him there were more. Still holding Aleksander and Piotr by their necks, he turned and saw four fresh ones with guns – more corpse men who wouldn’t die.

The bald one spoke. “Let them go, mutant, and don’t make any sudden movements.”

Victor growled, placing every upright thing on the roof by scent.

“Mr. Creed…”

Victor turned his head slightly and saw the woman at the edge of the roof, hands up as if to surrender. They had come here for her. His eyes narrowed. Taking a deep breath, he threw the two men at the rest, making some of them startle and fire their weapons. Then he turned.

“Damn! Stop him! He’s going for the girl!”

Rushing at her, he saw her straighten and open her arms wide as if to welcome him. Her head lifted and her smile was pure bliss. Victor twisted his body and snagged her up with one arm under her knees and the other at her shoulders. She put her arms up around his neck and clung to him as he launched off of the roof.

*****************************************************************

“Dammit!”

The others rushed to the edge and looked out, but the mutant had already landed and disappeared at a full run.

“Can we make that jump?”

“Nyet.”

Piotr pulled himself back up to his feet and then helped Aleksander up. “Don’t start crying,” Piotr told them. “The girl’s tagged – just in case.”

His superior turned and nodded to him. “Could be worse, then; we’ve still got a few hours before the seas turn to blood.”

*****************************************************************

He drove past an old three-story brownstone and parked his tawny 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham around the corner from it in an alley. The huge car barely fit. He palmed his keys, but left his wallet and phone in the glovebox. Keeping a hand on the woman’s upper arm, he steered her back and up the steps to the front doors of the building. A taller building was attached beside it, with most of its windows smashed out.

Looking around at everything, the woman was silent. She didn’t seem to be trying to run, though, so he let her go to unlock the doors.

The brownstone had been abandoned and empty when he’d bought it from the man who hadn’t been able to afford to fix it. Most of the elderly residents had been moved elsewhere before the place could fall down around them. Victor had had the structure repaired and made sound, but had left it looking abandoned. Trash still littered the black and white tiled foyer and cobwebs were everywhere. They covered the tarnished brass mailboxes on one wall, the railing of the staircase, and the open and derelict elevator.

“Up tha stairs, third an’ top floor,” he told the woman as he bolted the doors. “First four doors up there are sealed. We’re stoppin’ at tha fifth at tha end o’ tha hall.”

She turned and started up, without a word or a complaint. Mystified, Victor stalked after her. He unlocked the fifth door when they got there and she gasped in surprise to see that a relatively clean and furnished apartment was hiding behind it.

“That way, sit,” he told her, pointing at the blue couch.

He closed, locked and bolted the door and turned on a tall lamp. The light revealed a collection of empty bottles, books, and papers on a sidetable. A blue rug was spread under the couch and a coffee table. Across from the couch, wooden posts supported a small loft accessed by a thin metal staircase and railing that was little more than a ladder. The door under the loft led to the small kitchenette and bathroom beyond, but it was probably just a rectangle of darkness to her sight.

On the other side of the long room was a collection of cheap furniture, including a dresser with an old television on it and a round table sporting cold pizza in a battered box. He’d eaten more of the delivery guy than the pizza, but he’d left no evidence of that. One smaller window had a white curtain on it, to block the morning sun from blinding him when he crashed on the couch.

Victor stripped off his ruined leather jacket and tossed it on the coffee table with the keys, watching her take it all in.

She glanced behind her and smiled slightly when she noticed the pair of cats on the framed art print poster. Fancy lettering announced that it was from the Theophile-Alexandre Steinlen A la Bodiniere Exposition. It hung on the light blue wall over the couch, and was the only effort at décor he’d made here. A trio of fancy windows let a little moonlight in, as did the skylights over the loft, but the full moon wasn’t high enough yet to brighten the room much.

Victor assessed her as best he could by what he saw and scented. She was exactly the young and pretty type that was generally terrified of him. She had a decent model-quality height of maybe five foot ten. Long curling blonde hair covered her shoulders and half of her back. The eyes were bright deep blue and not a jot of fear could be found in them. Her body made his thoughts wander, but he stopped that shit in a hurry. Something was odd about her.

After everything that had happened, she sat there in a white blouse, pink jogging pants, and white tennis shoes all covered with his blood – and she hadn’t said one word. Even when he jumped them both off of a building, she hadn’t screamed. She had offered herself on that roof, stood there ready to be stolen, and had clung to him all the way down. Not in the Cadillac, or entering this rundown brownstone, had she asked where he was taking her or why.

He picked up a wadded blanket from the back of the couch and tossed it to her when he saw her shivering. She caught it, watching him expectantly. The building was probably freezing, but he had never noticed.

Taking a breath, Victor pulled off his red t-shirt, now full of holes, and used it to rub smeared and drying blood off of his skin. He was amazed his long hair was still in its tight bun at the nape of his neck. The black jeans were full of holes too, and he wanted a shower intensely – to say nothing of needing a round of bullet extractions – but first things first.

“Awright, I’ll make this brief. This bolt-hole we’re in is pretty secure, but gettin’ stabbed, shot, an’ broken wears out my patience. Yer gonna tell me who those bastards were. Yer gonna tell me what those bastards were, an’ yer gonna tell me why they want ya dead.”

Her voice was soft, light, and had a slight Northern trace to it without an accent. She definitely wasn’t a New York City native. She rose with one knee still on the couch and spread her arms open at her sides. “I don’t know. I’m sorry, I don’t know.”

Victor held the ruined shirt and frowned. “That’s crap, ya dunno.” Dropping the shirt, he lunged in and drove her back into the couch. She dropped her gaze, but a clawed finger pricking under her chin lifted her face to look at him again.

“Ya got sixty seconds t’ remember, before I gut ya like a –”

She grasped his wrist and moved his arm as her scent changed and exploded around him. Rising on her knees, she grabbed his face in both hands and landed a kiss hard on his lips, barely avoiding being cut by his protruding lower fangs.

When she released him and fell back on her haunches, she stretched, displaying the heavy breasts in the bloody blouse as her fingers toyed with her curls. Her eyes closed, the small smile almost drunk as her pheromones assaulted his senses.

Victor reared back, one hand on the arm of the couch behind him, the other raised, claws out, as instinct sought to ward her off. His voice rose until he was shouting at her, “What tha hell are ya doin’?”

Rising to her knees on the couch, she began to unbutton the white blouse. She opened it to reveal a black lacey bra that barely contained magnificent breasts. “Watching you – back there on the roof, I’ve never – never seen anything…”

She dropped the blouse and moved right into his space, pushing him back with her advance, one of her small hands on his abdomen and the other right over his hardening cock trapped in the jeans. She’d put her cleavage directly in his line of sight and his clawed hands drew back as he stared at that softness.

“The gunfire, and the … the fighting… All of it, I love it – all of it!” She closed her eyes again and leaned her face in. The soft voice whispered, “Please…”

Her smile was serene, trusting, and her body and scent were drowning him in lust. The behavior was a shock – no woman did this after seeing the monster he was, not knowing him at all, never having seen him before. Willing women were rare, and most had known him a while, known what he was – either way, they generally had been paid enough not to care.

Victor lifted a hand in wonder to touch the side of her face. She didn’t shy away, but pressed into the touch and gave him a little hungry moan. He didn’t think after that. He grasped her body and pressed her against his as he kissed her, pulling her leg up over his hip. The sweet-scented hidden places rubbed against his cock as it hardened so fast it hurt.

She didn’t let go of him when he lifted her and got them both to their feet. With her hands kneading his back and her lips brushing his shoulder, he swiped claws down the side of her thick cotton jogging pants and the pieces fell, leaving a wide torn gash in them without even a whisper of a scratch on her smooth skin.

“Oh God…” she murmured against his chest.

He bent her backward in his arms, a low growl of hunger thrumming between them. Turning her, he pressed his chest into her back and let the growl rumble at her ear. One hand held her throat, the other, a strip of her torn pants still stuck on his claws, squeezed a lace-covered breast.

“Oooohhh,” she whispered, and melted against him.

Using his body, he shoved her forward onto the couch again. She landed on her knees with her arms crossed on the back of it. His claws shredded what was left of her pants and the black lace panties that clung onto one thigh until mere scraps were hanging at her knees. One hand on her back pushed her down lower as he tore open his buttonfly and hauled his stiff dick out. The jeans hung at his thighs, but his heat was too urgent to bother with that.

Before he could pull her hips to him, she thrust her ass back into him. She was so wet, that in the moment he shoved deep, her sweet slick dripped around his shaft and down the insides of her thighs. She had already come, just from waiting for him to fuck her.

His groan as the tight pussy swallowed every inch of his cock was answered by her cries. He didn’t slow, didn’t care about her pleasure, he just thrust hard and deep, finding no bottom inside her to hinder his length.

Sure that she would soon begin to protest his roughness, he was prepared to hold her still and make her endure it. To his shock, her body only opened to him as she used her arms to move, to shove back on his thrusts. It stole his breath and stilled his predatory thoughts.

“Harder,” she almost hissed, and gasped when he pulled back and slammed into her. “Oh, yes … fuck me…”

Victor snarled and gripped her hips hard enough to leave bruises. His claws pricked the perfect skin and she cried out again, but her cries were … heat … not pain, not fear. He held them back, but let them scratch, and was rewarded by another moan. Pumping faster, he chased an orgasm that wouldn’t take long, and when hers hit, rippling the tight grip around his cock, he lost control and blew so intensely that his instinct to roar was choked in his throat.

He yanked out of her and hit his knees on the rug. His fingers parted the cheeks of her ample and round ass to keep his fangs from hurting her as he shoved his long tongue into her pussy.

“What are you … doing, oh, God … God, yes…”

She writhed as he tongue-fucked her. When he knew he needed more, he rose, wrapped an arm around her waist and hoisted her up. He set her on her feet where she slumped in a daze against one of the loft posts.

Glaring at her, he hissed as his pointed ears pinned. “Don’t move.”

He felt her watching as he pulled the coffee table to one side. The jeans hindered him, so he cut them away, leaning over to yank his boots and socks off. Without straightening, he tossed couch cushions over the coffee table and pulled the thin mattress of the sofa bed out. The purple silk sheets were clean, if dusty. He was accustomed to simply sleeping on the couch. He tossed the blanket she’d abandoned over the top.

Returning to the girl, he backed her against the post. Slipping a claw under the center strip between her bra cups, he sliced it. The boning and straining elastic made the cups pop away to hang from the shoulder straps. Retracting claws at the last minute, he pushed two thick fingers inside her pussy and kissed her. Before her wandering tongue could be cut, he broke the kiss, ducked his head and ran a flattened tongue over a stiff rosy nipple.

She shuddered and tensed, probably surprised at the sensation of the little feline barbs on his tongue. Then her hands gripped the back of his neck and tried to move him to the other breast. He chuckled low in his throat and complied.

“Can we…? Um … would you do it again – on that?” One hand left his neck to point at the bed.

“Gonna ‘do it’ lots o’ times, ready or not, like it or not.”

The pointing hand moved to his face and stroked a mutton chop sideburn. “I liked it – and I’m ready for … a lot.”

“Ya sure ‘bout that?” He smirked at her. “I can fuck ya ‘til ya pass out, an’ when ya wake up, I’ll still be fuckin’ ya.”

She lowered her head, and then peeked up at him through her messy golden curls. “I’d like that just fine.”

“Huh. We’ll see. Ya get in my bed, I’ll do anythin’ I fuckin’ please t’ ya an’ if ya start t’ bleat an’ beg me t’ stop, just gonna do it more.” He stepped back and watched her.

She slipped out of the shoulder straps and let the ruined bra fall. “May I take off my shoes?”

Victor sank to his knees and stuck a claw between her ankle and the shoe. With one slit through the works, the lacing, shoe, and sock were cut open. Twisting to cut the other, he let a toothy smile stretch his mouth as she toed out of them, three delicate fingers poised on his shoulder for balance.

He wasn’t prepared for her to move past him and walk off – to the sofa bed. He rose and turned to see her grab some of the pillows that had been tossed aside with the cushions. She threw them to the couch back and crawled up on hands and knees before lying down to wait for him on the striped purple blanket.

The slightest shiver went through her when he got there and slid a hand up her leg; it betrayed a few things to him about her. For all of her forward boldness, he knew she wasn’t very experienced. The faint scents on her breasts and pussy were proof: only two males had touched her sexually. One had been months before, if not longer; the other was a mere echo to his senses.

“Open yer legs,” he told her, and watched as she did it with her pheromones spiking again. A slight blush pinkened her cheeks as he made her wait. A hungry low growl sparked with his fresh heat and he abruptly couldn’t wait any longer.

Crawling over her, he picked up her hips in his hands as the claws disappeared and pulled her onto his hard cock. His foreskin hadn’t retracted yet and her pussy was so tight, it pulled it back as he thrust in. This time, he didn’t pull out when he came. He licked her breasts and sucked her responsive pink nipples as he waited to go again, his weight held off of her with one hand. She grabbed at him and the sounds she made could almost cut his recovery time in half. When he hardened again inside her and began to move, she gasped.

Victor looked up at her face and was caught by the expression there and the wide blue eyes staring back at him. Tears shimmered but didn’t fall as she watched him with wonder and fascination; her pink full lips were open as if her mouth wanted to be filled, too. He didn’t understand the way she watched him.

Growling, he dropped his gaze to her heavy breasts. She was young, younger than he’d first thought. They settled only a little in her supine position and moved gently as his powerful thrusts shifted her body up and back. The nipples were prominent, a good quarter-inch erect, and a perfect fresh pink. Reaching up, his fingertips pinched one, testing her response to find where pleasure turned to pain. She felt the pain soon enough, but it made her pheromones bloom around him again as she moaned and bit her lower lip.

Her hand moved and fingertips touched his lips. When her thumb stroked up one of his long lower fangs, a shudder ran down his spine. With a growl, he nipped at the fingers, his teeth snapping together.

Pulling her fingers away to avoid the teeth, she threw her head back and immediately came again, her manicured nails biting into his shoulders. Victor arched his back over her and let out a roar as he came that rattled the glass in the windows.

When he could speak, still buried deep, he looked down at her. “Sore yet?”

“No… You are so … beautiful…”

Victor glared at her. “Yer touched, huh? That why those weird freaks wanted ya – did ya escape a loony bin?”

She cocked her head at him, a puzzled expression taking over the stranger, softer one. “No, I just … think that you’re beautiful. Your body, the teeth, the … claws… You’re the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen.”

“Def touched in tha head,” he muttered. Her pussy was getting full around his dick, but he began to move once more, letting it harden when it could. “Ain’t done with ya by a long shot.”

Her hands pressed against and then stroked his broad furry chest, a smile growing as she realized it was soft blonde fur and not wiry human body hair.

“I want you to keep doing it until I pass out – wasn’t that the deal?”

Ignoring her jibe, he dropped his forehead down to her breasts and fucked into her hard. He wasn’t as rough as he could be, but she hadn’t tried to tap out yet, so he was willing to make it survivable for her.

The harder he thrust, the more she would writhe and once, she surprised him with an orgasm that started again the moment it stopped. Going by the noise she made, she’d surprised herself. Every ripple of the tight pussy was a gut-punch of pleasure on his cock. He filled her again and pulled out slowly, one hand under her ass to hold her pussy up at an angle.

“Open wider,” he ordered, and settled between her legs when she obeyed. A purr sparked in his chest and throat at the sight of her full pussy, sloppy white with his seed and starting to drip. He leaned in to scent it before he began to lap at it with his tongue. Her toes curled in his peripheral vision and then she hooked her heels onto his shoulders. Looking up, he told her, “Pinch yer nipples – hard. Wanna hear ya hurtin’ yerself while I suck yer pussy.”

“Oh…” she whispered, but her fingers moved to obey and as he lowered his head and gave her his mouth, her cries grew sharper. Her thighs began to tremble when he could tongue-fuck her again, the tongue curling and moving to lick her clean deep inside.

When he felt sated, he moved around her leg and flopped onto his back beside her. His breathing was still short. Her body had gripped him so tightly that she had almost wrung his cum from his dick before he meant to pop, more than once.

“So you can go again really fast…” She sat up and turned toward him, putting her hands on his stomach on either side of his softening dick.

Victor grunted at her without replying as he tried to slow his breathing.

“And you like the taste…” She leaned down and he hissed in surprise when she stuck her tongue out and licked at the mess on his dick. “Is it – too sensitive now?”

That won her a growl. “Ain’t got none o’ that in me. Feelin’ curious? Sit on it an’ see what ya get.”

Without hesitation, she moved to straddle him. Her long legs managed it with relative ease, her knees on the mattress at his hips. “It’s huge,” she said, her voice soft. “I’ve never seen one – like that.”

“Used t’ spreadin’ fer needle dicks, huh?”

“Well … yes, actually, but I meant…” Her fingers reached out to touch the foreskin, which was hooding the head again. “I’ve never seen that. I know what it is, but – never … had one before.”

“Knock yerself out,” he responded, and watched her.

She picked it up, heedless of the mess turning sticky on it. Her explorations started to wake it up but not enough to pull the hood back. His eyebrow arched at her when she put her fingers around the head near the tip and moved them down, exposing the head a little. She seemed pleased with herself as it stiffened more, but then she laid it down on him again. He was about to speak when she moved up, put her hands on his chest, worked her long legs and started to rub her wet pussy up and down the shaft.

Leaning into it and biting her lower lip again, her arms had pressed those magnificent tits together and the nipples were poking out. He sucked in a breath when she came from rubbing on him, her little cries and the dripping wet ramping up his heat again. His dick hardened almost painfully fast once more and she watched avidly as the foreskin retracted. Victor was about to pull her off to mount her, when she slid her body up to the head and pressed forward, shifted her hips backward, got his head poised at her wet slit and then flicked her hips back farther and lifted up to allow it to pop inside of her.

“Fuck,” he whispered, shocked off his guard as she slowly pushed herself down, taking it all in deep until her ass was sitting on his pelvis.

Her smile was shy, actually fucking shy. His thoughts went blank as he watched her, mute and stunned as she began to fuck him.

“I read about that in _Cosmo_ ,” she confessed. “I guess it works. Is it… Am I doing it right?”

Victor set his hands on her hips and resisted the urge to growl at her again. This thing had just taken a turn for the strange. He had a lot of kinks in his arsenal, and this girl with her naïveté and her shyness had struck him dumb. He swallowed hard and tried to talk.

“Don’t hafta go at it like yer drillin’ fer oil, gonna wear yerself out. Follow my guide here,” he told her, his hands giving her hips a smack.

She nodded and tried to match the pace his hands showed her. Before she got there, she came and it hit three in a row and left them both gasping. She wasn’t using kegel tricks; it was all orgasmic spasms in that shock of a pussy.

“I’m sorry…”

“What tha fuck fer?”

“It just does that,” she said, flustered and blushing. “I’ve been told it’s … weird.”

“Told by those two striplin’ dickwads that fucked ya first? Whattaya care what meat t’ be wasted thinks o’ ya?”

She stopped moving and settled on him, her eyes wide. “How do you know about them?”

“I can smell ‘em on ya. That ain’t important – keepin’ movin’ up there is.” When she resumed, he added, “Don’t bother me none if yer pussy wants t’ drench an’ strangle my cock all night. Win-win.” She started to reply, but he reached up to squeeze those tits and flicked the nipples with clawless fingers and that shut her up just fine. She came again a moment later and the sensations were too much to take lying down.

Victor put a hand at her lower back to steady her and sat up. Driven by either lust or instinct, he wasn’t sure which, he flattened out his tongue and licked it up the side of her throat. He found himself staring into wide ocean-blue eyes shining with tears and hunger. She leaned in, slipping her tongue out, and he thought she meant to kiss him. The delicate pink tongue touched one of his lower fangs and licked up it. He froze as she put her soft lips on it, feathering kisses up its curved length.

His arm around her tightened as his mind just emptied. He was barely aware when she came again, but his body knew and responded to her in a way it never had to anyone. Her hands were on his chest, the palms rubbing over his nipples. He felt his stomach drop and flip and caught the scent of fear – his… She tried to kiss him, but he turned his head. Her mouth closed on his throat, kissed the pounding pulse under soft and plump pink lips – and then she bit him.

Victor tried to growl, but the moment her teeth had gripped his flesh around his pulse, he began to come. It felt almost violent, the pleasure tearing through him.

“Harder,” he told her, a hiss chasing the word. “Make it hurt…”

She tried, but she didn’t have the bite force, and her teeth weren’t going to be able to break the skin. Yet her mouth on his neck and her pussy throttling his cock as his ejaculate made her come again, was more than enough. When it was over, he meant to lie back. She wrapped her arms around his body as his ribs worked to help him breathe and rested her cheek on his shoulder. He held her in his arms and let the aftershocks stretch his nerve endings to the limit.

Thoughts in a whirl, Victor broke the embrace. He picked her up off of him bodily and laid her onto her back. She watched him, her legs open to him and he couldn’t do anything but crawl back over her. He wasn’t ready yet, but he didn’t care. One hand guided his cock to her dripping pussy and stuffed it in. He thrust it in and out until it hardened nearly by force.

She came as his soft dick was beginning to stiffen and her body made it ache for her. The bed was a mess under them, but she didn’t seem to care anymore than he did.

“Don’t stop,” she begged, “just keep doing it…”

“Yer gonna want me t’ stop before I hafta,” he answered.

“No, no … don’t stop fucking me, please…”

Victor’s heat overwhelmed him and something deep was stirred awake, something primal. He fucked her until he came and then he shoved it back in soft again. No matter how many times he did it, she didn’t ask him to stop.

Her muscles were shuddering, sweat poured from them both, but she would moan and cry out, and once, when he stopped and pulled free, she began to cry in earnest. He sat back on his haunches and watched her, his cock falling limp again. The little hands moved over her stomach, her fingers finding her full pussy. She opened her legs wider and her fingers tried to grasp the slick cum-smeared labia. He watched, mesmerized, breathing deep to scent her as she stuck two fingers inside and opened herself.

“I need it,” she whispered, her tone almost a whimper. “Please don’t stop…?”

Victor’s lips peeled back from his teeth as he growled. The sight of her opening, white with his cum, exposed by her trembling fingers, was too much. His cock twitched and started to harden sooner than it should have been able to. He moved between her legs and felt the fingers brush his cock as she held herself open for him to enter. When she moved her arms, he caught the wrists in one hand and held them over her head as he thrust.

“I want to feel your weight.”

“There’s more o’ that than ya think.”

“I don’t care…”

The arm that was holding it off of her bent and he lay on her, pressing her into the thin mattress as he thrust. The weight over her torso probably helped, but he kept his threat to fuck her until she passed out. He hoisted himself to let her breathe easier and didn’t stop until she burst into consciousness again with a little cry.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, gasping. Her hands stroked his chest and arms, pinched his nipples, and then she came again twice in a row, forcing his body to come in its grip.

The moment the insane pleasure was reduced to a low thrum in his veins, Victor dug his hands under her back and grabbed her against him. Rolling them both, he put her on top.

“Don’t move. I need a nap an’ tha only way I might get one is if I keep my dick parked in yer ravenous twat.” She started to protest, but he cut her off. “Tell me a bedtime story – like why tha zombie freaks want ya. Whattaya do fer work?”

“Lab tech.” She smiled, not on board with the nap plan. Her body moved slightly and it felt too good to make her stop.

Before long, he began to thrust inside her and then it all started up again. They fucked for hours. Her heat remained strong, even when her body was exhausted, and she gave him so much sweet juice from that tight pussy that he could barely think in the cloud of musky sex he was drowning in with every indrawn breath.

Out of the depths of his damaged mind, fear lurked on the fringe of lust. He couldn’t stop touching her and he couldn’t stop trembling. When he finally yanked his body away from hers, he sat up and put a hand to his forehead. He felt her touch his back and he fought to stand as if she had burned him.

His head spun when he stood at the end of the sofa bed. The room seemed to tilt in his vision and he felt dizzy. Behind him, the scent of her heat was still strong, as if it was trying to consume him. Fear scent burst around him again before he realized it was inner demons and inner terrors driving him into heightened stress. He fought to breathe, waiting until the healing factor wiped away the dizziness. The compressing feeling of being trapped remained, even as she made him ache to have her again.

 _Tha strength in those long legs, that tight hair-trigger pussy – ‘er heat … is a match … fer mine._ Victor shook his head almost violently. _She ain’t no sex witch – just a nympho with a trick fer multiple orgasms. Fact that she checks all tha boxes on my wish list don’t mean she won’t wanna go back t’ wherever tha fuck she came from an’ forget all this. Succubi disappear when tha sun comes up, moron._

When he could walk, he started opening drawers in the dresser across the room, under the small box television. Grabbing fresh clothes, he stuffed them under his arm and fetched his boots on the way back to the bed.

“Are we … going somewhere?”

All he could think about was getting some distance before she swallowed him whole. “Should keep movin’; those freaks seemed pretty determined,” he muttered, hauling up a pair of blue jeans.

He picked up a dirty shirt from the floor and used it to wipe off his dick before he stuffed it in and buttoned the pants. For a moment, he felt dizzy again until the healing factor stopped it. She was clearly weary too, but her hunger was still there and it had driven his senses and his body relentlessly in a way he’d never experienced. In the end, he’d gotten out of the bed to escape her, as if she could drain him of his strength if he stayed. Pulling on a tan knit shirt with sleeves, Victor huffed out a breath. He sat on the edge of the sofa bed to put his socks and boots back on.

His bedmate sat up with the sheet pulled over her breasts. The abrupt modesty was odd too, after everything they’d done. She was … confusing…

“You’re a mutant … right? I couldn’t help noticing your wounds are, uh … gone, not even the scars are left.”

“Healin’ factor. Heightened senses.” _Guess she don’t realize those bumps are healed-over bullets._

“I swear to you, I don’t know who those men were. The first time I saw them was … well, the first time I saw you.”

“Ya wanna start answerin’ my questions now?”

“I was apartment-sitting.”

Victor stood and crossed his arms over his chest, staring down at her. “An’ yer job, tell me again.”

“I’m a lab tech, that’s all. I wash test tubes and push buttons.” She leaned back on one elbow, the other hand gesturing to emphasize her words. “Look, I don’t know what they wanted with me. I haven’t seen anything weird, gone anyplace special, done anything – but for what it’s worth … I’m sorry you got involved. You saved my life … thank you.”

Victor pressed the heels of his hands against his forehead and closed his eyes in disbelief. “Saved yer life – saved – yer … life.” Stomping a boot up onto the corner of the bed, one hand on his hip and the other stabbing his thumb back toward himself, he leaned over and shouted, “Do ya know how ridiculous that is? I’m an assassin, fer cryin’ out loud! A hired killer!”

She had leaned back when he’d gotten aggressive, but she wasn’t afraid. She watched him, her expression earnest and open. She was covered with his scent, her body full of his cum, and the way she looked at him made him shudder with both lust and fear. He couldn’t understand what she’d done to him. He turned away from her and leaned one hand down on the sidetable, the other gripping the only bottle there that wasn’t empty.

“Look … I can’t – I don’t know what you think of me. At this point I don’t know what I think of myself… I just moved here from Missouri three months ago, all right? I was prom queen. I used to babysit for extra cash. I never … never… The closest I ever got to … to danger was … was – was if I burned myself on a curling iron.”

Victor turned his head to look at her as she sat up and reached a hand out to his shoulder without touching him. She still had the sheet pulled up around her, her other hand clutching it over her breasts.

“This, what we did tonight – how I was – I didn’t know it could … that I’d… Look… I know what you were going to do with me. After I told you what you wanted to know, I’m not stupid. But this was – real. Wasn’t it? I’m telling the truth … you know that, don’t you?”

He tried not to crush the bottle. His other hand rose, the claws glinting in the light of the lamp and the windows. “It was their scent. Why I went up there. Those guys on tha roof – they were dead. Understand? Not rotten, but dead, just tha same. Dead men … an’ my claws barely scratched ‘em.”

“Um … so what are … what’re you going to do?”

Victor slumped over the bottle and bowed his head. “Ya were right. I can tell if someone’s lyin’ t’ me. I can smell it.” As she rose to her feet, he straightened and stared at his claws. “I…” She came closer, her scent still warm for him as she cocked her head to one side and smiled. Victor dropped his hand and met her gaze. “Yer gonna need some new clothes.”

With a sigh, he lifted, shoved, and folded up the old sofa bed, ears pinning at the metal twanging noises it made.

A shadow passed one of the skylights. As Victor looked up, the glass shattered all around them. He barely registered that the dead men had found them before a pair of them started firing darts. In seconds, nearly twenty of them struck him at once and he collapsed to the rug.

“Ya…nnhh…” His speech slurred into a garbled moan. Struggling to get up, trying to pull them out, he heard the woman screaming.

Piotr crouched to watch him. “That’ll keep him down.”

The bald man from the roof answered, “Da, but let us make certain.”

Piotr rose and leveled the submachine gun at Victor. Aleksander lifted one, too. Others watched as they opened fire, their shouts of triumph drowned out by the woman’s screams. Victor turned his head to see her through the close-range muzzle fire. Wrapped in his sheet, covered with his scent, her fingers pressed against her lips as she watched in horror with tear-filled eyes.

_They’ll kill ‘er…_

He tried to turn his body, to fight to his feet, but his body was failing him. Her fear scent washed over him as the blackness edged in, trying to pull him down.

The voice of the bald man was shifting through his fading senses. “Miss Bonnie Hale, correct? Don’t worry … we’ll make this quick.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Victor’s 1959 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham (pronounced “Brom”) is one of only ninety-nine cars made in Italy in 1959. It is “tawny” (yellow-brown) with chrome accents in the comics art. I’ve decided that’s because of his love for Joe Cocker and the song “Sandpaper Cadillac”. I had a round robin-style consultation with some Cadillac expert friends via Facebook after posting photos from my comic that show Victor’s car, which he says is a Cadillac. They couldn’t sort out from the art what year or model it was, and finally concluded that the artist must not have been sure how to draw a Caddy, since parts look like a Plymouth, etc. So instead, I decided to find a cool and unique car that would appeal to Victor’s vanity and be a prized possession. In the comic, he states he spent a mint on having it armored, and it appears to be bulletproof, in the body and the glass. Even though he states he “hated to ditch that car”, I plan to have him retrieve it later so he can be driving it in other stories, because it’s simply too cool. Just for fun, I’m going to say it is number fifty-nine of the ninety-nine that were made.  
> As with the Cadillac, there are guns, apartment details, etc. that are simply not clear in the comic, so I will be researching plausible weapons and making my “best guess” on other details as well, where necessary. Thanks for reading! – AnonGrimm (@MET_Fic)


	2. It Consumes

I wanna feel your last breath  
Before we suffocate  
A kiss you can’t forget  
Like a wedding on a rainy day

The chills keep shootin’ down the back of my neck  
Like a freight train poundin’ in the pit of my chest  
‘cuz when I got a taste of you  
I found somethin’ I can sink my teeth into

It’s the hurt that never heals  
It’s the deepest cut you feel  
It’s the thing in you that feeds  
The animal in me

It’s the darker side of lust  
It’s the other side of us  
It’s the thing in you that feeds  
The animal in me

~ Animal in Me (Mötley Crüe)

*****************************************************************

“Come on, people. American police aren’t that slow,” the voice of the bald man admonished.

Aleksander replied, “All I’m saying is, dead weight is harder to transport.”

“What,” Piotr, argued, “you want to listen to her whimper the whole time?”

Aleksander’s chuckle was part amused and part frustrated. “I guess we could gag her.”

“You geezers make me physically ill, you know that?” the bald man protested. “Should’ve left you in the rest home.”

“Say now,” Piotr retorted to him, “you’re not much younger than we are, Leonid –”

“Save it, old man,” bald Leonid answered. He sounded dismissive, but with authority.

As the voices began to pull Victor back to full consciousness, he was placing them around him, by speech, breathing, and heartbeats. The closest one to him held one of the Russian compact submachine guns. When he started to lift his wounded arm and turn, the heartrate and scent didn’t change – no one was watching him.

He lunged up and grabbed the man, his claws hooking in his opening mouth before he pivoted on his feet and smashed the man’s head through a dresser, splintering it in half.

“Bonnie! Hit tha floor!” He launched for a red metal lockbox. “So claws didn’t do it, eh?”

One of the other men knocked a chair over to get behind him and opened fire with a submachine gun, but Victor ignored it. He was already so full of lead, the bullets hit more bullets than they did flesh.

Yanking up a loaded Glock 17L from the box in each hand, he called out, “Try these.” The hand cannons went off as loud as mortar rounds in the small room, the muzzle flashes bright as he made undead men scream.

Bonnie was huddled in the sheet at one end of the couch, trying to cover her head and watch for other threats at the same time. Victor’s attack threw Piotr and Leonid off of their feet and Piotr landed on the couch and nearly onto Bonnie.

He had emptied out the Glocks and let them fall, raising clawed hands to face off with Aleksander, one the few who had already struggled to rise.

“This is pointless, Creed. We’re going to shut you down no matter what.”

“Yeah, right.”

The moment he began shooting his submachine gun, Victor grabbed his wrist and swung his body up to crunch inside a wall in a burst of broken drywall and dust. A vicious kick sent another man flying into others and they toppled into the table and chairs and fell in a tangled heap. He leapt to grab his keys from the floor by the couch, his bullet-riddled body looming over the huddled girl.

“Bonnie, go get tha car.”

She took the keys and struggled up in the sheet, heading for the door. Bending down along the way, she grabbed a shotgun one of the men had dropped.

Victor picked up one of the men by his leg and used him like a baseball bat to smash others across the room. Their submachine guns fired at the ceiling, tearing the place to shreds.

One man grabbed her ankle. “No you don’t, bitch!” He pulled her foot up to unbalance her and rose with a knife. She ripped her arm out of his gloved grip and swung the shotgun up. Her expression of pure hate was as glorious as the fiery boom of the weapon going off point-blank in his face.

When he saw her get away, Victor plunged his grasping hands into the hole in the wall that Aleksander had fallin out of.

Leonid came up behind him. “Oh, for Pete’s sake, Creed, give up already! You’re just prolonging the inevitable!”

Aleksander got up and Piotr came to stand beside him, both of them brandishing submachine guns.

“Thought ya guys were soldiers at first,” he spoke to Leonid. “Had some gear, had some moves.”

With a fierce grin, Victor ripped a broken electrical cable out of the wall and lunged in to eletrocute Aleksander and Piotr with it. Their bodies lit up with snaking blue light as they screamed. When it released them and dissipated, he began to beat them to a pulp with fists.

“But not tha right moves an’ not tha right gear neither or I’d be dead already. Then I hear that ‘geezer’ crack.” He grabbed Aleksander and shoved him down as he lifted his knee, crunching it up under his chin. His body flew backward. “So who are ya? How come ya smell like corpes, an’ what’s it gonna take t’ kill ya?”

Leonid moved up from behind him, holding a knife. “You don’t understand what’s happening. You should be helping us.”

Victor crouched halfway, claws up and ready. “Yeah? There’re smarter ways t’ ask fer help – than stabbin’ a guy in tha throat.”

He jumped with claws outstretched, but Leonid moved fast to block it, pushing his arm across his body and side-stepping his attack.

“Speaking of which,” the bald man retorted, and slashed Victor’s throat open with the blade.

As his momentum drove him on, Victor grabbed the man’s wrists and pushed him in front of him and right out of one of the windows.

Glass exploded around them, they began to fall, and as his throat healed, Victor ground out, “Bastard.”

Falling from the third-story window, they flattened the roof of a car parked at the curb in a burst of glass and grinding metal just as Bonnie drove up in his Cadillac. Victor leaped off of the destroyed car faster, snatched a grenade from Leonid’s belt, and ran to her.

“Move over,” he called out, “I’m drivin’.”

The others had run down the fire escape and were coming up fast. She scooted across the wide leather seat and Victor jumped in, slamming the driver’s door a second before they started shooting again. The bullets ricocheted off of the metal and glass without a scratch.

Grinning, Victor rolled down his window and pulled the pin. “Need t’ give that guy back ‘is grenade.” He tossed it at the clustered group of them, rolled up the window, and stepped on the gas as the satisfying firebomb hit the crushed car behind them and lit up the night, throwing them in every direction.

*****************************************************************

Leonid rolled off of the car just as his lieutenant cried out, “Hey, that’s –”

A grenade struck the car Creed had flattened him on and the explosion threw them all to the concrete and asphalt as the firebomb bloomed overhead, roiling into black smoke as Creed escaped.

Regrouping by the car fire, Leonid looked over his men. They were haggard and demoralized, but alive.

The lieutenant, singed but upright, approached holding an assault rifle. “You know, I really hate that guy.”

Leonid sighed. “Dumb son of a bitch has no idea what he’s doing.” Turning away from him to stare down the street where Creed had disappeared, he asked, “Can Piotr and Aleksander walk?”

“I don’t know. They took a hard jolt.”

“Carry them if you have to. I’ve got to report to Kalashnikov.” He looked grim as he unclipped his radio.

“Lucky you.”

~ ~ ~

Kalashnikov sat in the lab at the Infectious Diseases Research Center and observed as Cyril worked, his hands in the gloves that reached into the clean room as he stood behind the protective glass.

The radio buzzed and Leonid’s voice spoke into the quiet of the lab. “Sir … we’ve temporarily lost Creed and Hale…”

Kalashnikov frowned as he picked up his handset. “Define ‘temporarily’.”

Cyril moved away from the work and came up behind him. He could almost hear him gritting his teeth at the field team’s inept handling of the mutant complication.

“We have make, model, and tag number of their vehicle. We have all known lines tapped for the girl, and as soon as we’re in range, her standard tag from the lab can be tracked. I’ve reached out to our contact in the NYPD and he’s put out a BOLO on them as an APB. We’ll locate them, sir – well before red hour.”

“I’m sure you will, Leonid, but keep Danilov in mind while you’re looking.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Also, no more of this one-on-one action film nonsense. When you’ve located them, bomb the entire area – everything … down to the ground.”

“Yes, sir… Out.”

The report was barely over before Cyril stepped in front of him, agitated and eager to mop up Leonid’s mess. Kalashnikov never tired of seeing his good work in Cyril – the young and strong body was almost indestructible, while housing the brilliant mind and experience of the old man he used to be.

“Let me go after them, Kalashnikov.”

He looked away as he set the radio down. “No. I need you here in the lab.”

Dressed in a black military tank shirt that made him look like an Army grunt, the man gestured widely in frustration. “But I can do this! I dealt with Danilov, and he was one of us. This … this mutant, I could –”

“I know how anxious you are to prove your manhood, Cyril,” Kalashnikov cut him off. He turned to his computer and set his fingers to the keys. “But don’t forget, I knew you when you were still Dr. Philip Krantz, microbiologist, and it’s Dr. Krantz’s scientific acumen we need right now.”

As he called up the footage of the mutant captured by Leonid’s bodycam, Cyril leaned over his shoulder to look at it as the mutant launched himself into the air at Leonid on the monitor.

“All right, yeah. Fine.”

With the touch of a button, Creed’s image was on every monitor in the lab: wild, fierce, hard to kill – and a snag in the timetable that they could not afford.

Kalashnikov glared at the image in front of him. _As science attempts to advance, the brutish animal nature that still lurks in mankind rises once again and tries to end it all, to drag us back into the dark. Not this time, you base creature…_

*****************************************************************

Victor growled as he tried to sit comfortably in the small white car. He’d driven his Cadillac into the garage of the shop that often kept it running, and locked it up safe. Retrieving his phone and wallet, he’d tossed them between his legs for the drive in the stolen car.

Bonnie hadn’t commented on why he had a key to the place, or on his plan to break into, hotwire, and steal the rollerskate with a roof that had been sitting a block down the street. Yet as she began to unclench in the passenger seat, she had immediately looked with raised eyebrows at the stereo.

“And this, on the radio … we’re listening to…?”

“Joe Cocker – an’ get yer hand away from tha dial.” He leaned back in the seat, one hand at the top of the steering wheel. The back of the seat was pressing into the one behind it. “Had this on CD back in tha Caddy… Damn. Hated t’ ditch that car – armor job cost me a mint.”

He glanced at her and then back to the road, keeping his driving and speed in the nice and boring range, to stay off the radar of any cops. They drove in silence for a while as Victor headed out of the city.

_Gotta go someplace where she won’t be alone an’ we can both get what we need. If I don’t get tha lead outta me soon, it’s gonna start diggin’ in deeper. Those bastards ain’t gonna quit, neither. Ruth is our best bet, so upstate it is, out in tha semi-boonies._

Taking advantage of the silence on what would be an hour’s drive, he mulled over everything that had happened. The argument he’d heard while they thought he was dead had proven they wanted the girl – Bonnie Hale – dead. They’d whined about transporting her easier alive than dead, so taking her body with them was another part of their plan.

 _I was obvs an unexpected monkey wrench, so … she can’t be a trap they planted t’ bring me down._ He smirked a bit, amused and annoyed at once at his overblown paranoia. _Ain’t never heard o’ a beaver trap in quite that sense – but fuck, that means she’s a genuine enigma an’ neither o’ us knows why they want ‘er dead._

The fingers on his free hand twitched and he was tempted to put it on her thigh, but that was a sure-fire way to start a chat, and he wasn’t ready for that yet.

 _Paranoia aside, she ain’t a trap or a threat, no matter how freaked out ya got, moron. Wanna quit bein’ a pussy an’ just enjoy what’s on tha fuck menu? Hellfire, she’s got tha best snatch ya had yet, with or without rentin’ it, an’ ya don’t even gotta threaten, truss ‘er up, or knock ‘er out t’ fuck ‘er? Win-win, dickhead – pure an’ easy._ Stealing another look at her, he drew in a deep breath and let it out slow. _Damn pretty thing … turned on by tha violence an’ not afraid t’ deal some out – say hello t’ yer dream girl. Hope nobody pinches me before I get t’ fuck up int’ that again._

The girl remained quiet as she watched the night go by outside of her window. He half expected her to pass out from exhaustion, but she remained awake. Her fear scent was almost gone.

“Ya seem pretty calm,” he told her, not sure why he abruptly wanted to talk to her. Most skirts were better when they shut up.

She put a hand to her head and looked over at him. “I think I’m going into shock – or maybe I’ve been in shock. I – uh… I don’t really know how to process everything that’s happened tonight.”

Victor smirked. “Ya processed that shotgun pretty good back there. Nice, right in tha face. Heh.”

She sat up more and took in the sights as they entered what passed for civilization upstate. “May I ask where we’re going, and if we’ll be driving much longer?”

“This here’s Sleepy Hollow, New York, so if ya see a guy with no head on a horse, don’t stop t’ say hiya.” He tossed her wink. “Goin’ up t’ Riverside, right next t’ tha Hudson River. We’re nearly there.”

“Is this … your home?”

“Home away from home, maybe – ain’t been there in a while. It’s just a safe place t’ land.” He kicked the speed up a bit when he saw her shiver in her makeshift purple toga.

“Are you really not hurt? I mean, anymore?”

“Mighta gained a few pounds o’ lead an’ that shit’s gotta come out, but don’t worry yer pretty head ‘bout it – I’m dandy.”

“I can’t believe I shot that man. Did it kill him?”

“Dunno. Ain’t never seen guys harder t’ paste that weren’t wearin’ a cape.”

“A … a cape?”

“Long story, not important. Glad ya didn’t catch any o’ tha bullets that were flyin’ ‘round.”

She fell silent again until they turned onto Riverside. Sinking a little lower in the seat, she looked guilty. “I – I hope I killed him, because he was trying to kill us.”

 _Be still my beatin’ loins…_ Aloud, he only said, “Atta girl,” and grinned at her.

She turned her head to stare at him in wonder. “You … you saved my life again, I –”

“We’re here,” he interrupted. He pulled up into the winding rear driveway of a red brick and gray stone mansion surrounded by trees.

“Are you serious? What’s here?”

Victor stuffed his phone and wallet into his jeans pockets as soon as he unfolded himself out of the driver’s seat. “C’mon, we’ll go in tha back way.”

The white paint accents and white balconies appeared to float in the dark, and he supposed the whole place could seem a bit spooky with a full moon casting odd shifting light here and there through the trees.

272 Kelbourne sat on the corner lot of Kelbourne Avenue and Riverside Drive. On the outside it looked like a rich man’s home on the Hudson, and it still pretended to be, but after Victor had bought it, the caretaker had had different ideas on how to put it to use. Considering the nature of the business she wanted to run, he’d had no objections.

He put his arm around her and led her up the white wooden backstairs. The door wasn’t locked, and the moment he ushered her in, he was greeted with excitement by two of the girls.

“Victor!” Samantha called out, making Bonnie jump. Samantha had been giving Paige a neckrub while the blonde relaxed on a couch. Both of them were in bras and panties.

Paige chimed in with, “Long time no see, sweetie!”

“Get Ruth out here, girls. Now.”

Samantha went to fetch the short older Madam, and when she arrived, she sent the girls out of the room.

Bonnie didn’t seem to know whether to stare around her at the opulent old house decorated with animal heads and modern décor, at the retreating half-naked girls, or at Ruth in her silk suit.

His caretaker had chopped her light brunette hair off since he’d seen her last, but she looked just as feisty as ever.

“Victor Creed… You didn’t call, did you?” She crossed her arms and smiled up at him.

“Nope. Surprise visit, Ruth. I’ll be needin’ my room fer a while – can’t say how long.”

“Well, it’s ready. We got the cable fixed, so you can watch CNN again.”

“Good.” Victor took Bonnie by the shoulders and turned her to go upstairs to his suite. “C’mon up a minute an’ listen up, Ruth – gotta situation.”

He opened the door and led Bonnie in and then returned to speak to Ruth, who was leaning in the doorway and clearly amused.

 _My guest wasn’t dragged in kickin’ an’ screamin’, but this girl sure ain’t nothin’ like tha sorta baggage I usually show up with. Least I know Ruth can keep ‘er opinions t’ ‘erself._ “Awright… Number one, nobody knows we’re here. Nobody. Number two, this here’s Bonnie an’ yer gonna take care o’ ‘er – startin’ with some clothes an’ then anythin’ else she needs.”

“Okay … and which of the girls will you be wanting?”

“None. I just want all o’ yer mouths shut – an’ some food.” Victor leaned on the door frame as he held the door open.

“We’ve got a couple of your favorites in the kitchen. You want chicken cordon bleu or sirloins?”

“Sirloins. Tha more protein tha better. Any clients ya got here, cap it off fer tha night. I’ll need Araunya t’ come up, gotta shit-ton o’ lead in me – after I eat. Once she’s done, send all tha girls out t’ a hotel or somethin’.”

“There are only two clients left tonight. Does she like her steak ‘so a good vet can save it’?”

Victor turned his head and called out to Bonnie, “Rare, medium, or well-done, darlin’?”

She looked pale as she turned to face him. “Oh, I don’t think I could eat yet … maybe – later.”

Ruth clicked her tongue. “Poor thing looks ready to pop with stress. Give me twenty minutes to get all of that rolling.”

Victor nodded and closed the door. He turned and leaned on it, watching her. She was staring at him as if she’d just discovered something wonderful – it wasn’t an expression he was used to having pointed his way, unless the person was wearing a white coat and holding a scalpel. The thought made him shudder.

Still clutching the purple sheet around her, she spoke in a soft voice, “Victor… Your name sounds strange when I say it…” She took a breath and let it out slow, as if trying to calm herself. Her tone was as strange as her expression – she sounded possessive but … shy. Her heat was sparking again and hunger for him slowly turned her voice husky. “Come here.”

Victor peeled himself off of the door and moved to stand in front of her, mere inches away. Her heat came on stronger but it didn’t only catch in his loins – something primal was growing with it, ramping up his heartrate. She was afraid, but not of him. He wanted to kill … anything that dared to make her afraid.

“You use this place a lot, huh? Have the run of the house?” she teased, as if trying to hide her fear.

Victor arched an eyebrow at her. “I’m not goin’ t’ explain myself.”

“No, I know. I know.” She wilted and lifted a hand to touch his chest, her body language showing she wasn’t sure of her situation at all. Her fear scent spiked, coating over the heat.

He wanted to … protect… Victor reached to lift her up into a tight embrace, resting his scruffy chin on her bare shoulder. She immediately wrapped her long legs around his hips, her arms around his neck and back, and clung to him in desperation.

“Oooohh… God… Victor … all of this, I don’t know if I… It’s too much…”

He set her back on her feet again, still holding her, and touched his forehead to hers. “Quiet. Just be quiet. I’ll keep ya with me. I’ll keep ya safe.”

~ ~ ~

She had offered to go let Ruth know she’d forgotten silverware, but Victor had smirked, stabbed up one of the sirloins in his claws and let his sharp carnassial teeth shear it up at the side of his mouth.

“Ruth didn’t forget, darlin’,” he told her as he finished it in four bites and speared up the next. “Protein feeds tha healin’ factor an’ I never did see no point in forks.”

He caught her staring as he ate and worked on ignoring it.

“I’m sorry, if that bothers you,” she whispered, looking down at her hands.

“Don’t really, since ya ain’t lookin’ at me like I got two heads. I’m an acquired taste all ‘round ya know.”

“Oh, I’ve acquired it,” she blurted out, and then blushed.

“Fuckin’ blushin’ like that – yer gonna kill me, girl. Yer like peaches an’ cream with nipples.”

Of course, she blushed again and as the fear receded once more, Victor caught another whiff of her rarely absent heat. It was tempting to forget about meat and bullets, but he kept his seat and finished up. He had a plan in mind, and he’d need to be in peak condition to pull it off.

Like clockwork, the knock sounded at the door the moment the plate was empty. To his surprise, Bonnie began to get up to answer it. “Stay there,” he told the girl, “ya ain’t gotta do nothin’ but relax.” He got up and let Araunya in.

She was still too slender for his taste, but that hardly mattered – she hadn’t been brought in as a prostitute. Ruth had found ways to capitalize on her real talents, and Victor wasn’t the only one who came there needing help with bullet extractions.

“Keepin’ busy without me ‘round?” he asked her.

“Yes, Mr. Creed.” She held a square object of thick metal under one arm and a small wooden case in her other hand.

“This li’l river town get shot up that often?” he quipped with a smirk.

“They come from all over. Last week, it was a man from Boston. Oh, hello,” she said to Bonnie.

“She’s my guest. Bonnie, this is Araunya; she’s gonna get tha bullets outta me.”

“Hello…” the blonde whispered, watching the black-haired gypsy girl in her light green silk wrap dress as if she wasn’t sure what she was.

Victor went to the lock box in his closet and locked up his wallet and phone. Pain skated under his skin now and then as the bullets were jostled by his movement. It had been a long time since he’d been hit by that many of them, in a matter of hours.

“Are you ready, Mr. Creed?” Araunya moved to the bed and set the metal down on it. She lifted her hand over it and the metal moved, stretched, and grew until it covered the bed in a silvery sheet with low edges.

“‘Bout t’ be.” He’d caught Bonnie’s anxiety in the air as soon as the gypsy had started her mutant tricks. The scent spiked as he began to strip off clothes and boots on the way over and lay down on the metal. “Damn thing’s like a giant cookie sheet,” he joked. “Might wanna stay over there, darlin’ – this can get messy.”

“What is she going to do?” The girl got up clutching her sheet toga and went around the bed to his head.

“Think I said, ‘stay over there’…”

“She isn’t in the way, Mr. Creed,” Araunya interjected. She took the wooden case to the table and selected a bottle from it and put it in his bathroom. “If you’re worried about hurting her, I can keep her safe as well as me.”

“Ya seen ‘nuff blood fer one night, ain’t ya?” Victor looked up at Bonnie over his head.

“I want to be with you.”

Victor sighed at Araunya’s soft smile. “Suit yerself.”

If the odd mystic gypsy girl had possessed even an ounce of greed or ambition, Victor wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere near her, let alone a patient under her power. It also helped that her mutant ability of magnetism was nowhere near the level of Magneto or even Polaris. Yet for anyone who needed a bullet dug out and couldn’t risk going to a hospital, she was an asset. Normally, Victor knew that Ruth would have been in attendance to use her former medical training, but he had no need for that.

Araunya spoke to Bonnie, “Keep right there. This will hurt him, it can’t be helped. I can prevent him from lashing out if he loses control, but you will make my job easier if you aren’t within his reach. The faster it goes, the faster he can heal and it’ll be done.”

“I won’t move,” she answered, her fingers stroking his tied back hair and the few loose strands of it around his ears. She did manage not to move, but probably out of pure shock.

The gypsy’s power lifted Victor’s body two inches over the metal sheet with only a slight effort, using his Adamantium bones to do it. How she manipulated different metals in different ways at once was a mystery to him, but it worked ridiculously well – even if it did hurt like shit.

He felt her power reaching for the bullets, all of them, at once. With a brutal fast yank, she tore them out of his body from everywhere. The flesh had healed over them and some of the slugs had already started to burrow in more – in a few cases, pounded deeper by new hits.

As the smashed bullets rained down with a clatter onto the metal under him, it was streaked with blood as his body twitched, jerked, and the claws popped and strained to fight. He clamped his teeth together and growled through them, refusing to make any other sound.

Victor fought to keep his brains in place over the raging beast within. He focused on three sets of breathing: his rapid deep sucking for air through nostrils and clenched teeth, the gypsy’s calm breaths, and Bonnie’s short and quick breaths. The racket of the bullets hitting the metal stopped first. He was staring blankly at the ceiling with his back arched, but he knew the strange sheet was absorbing the bullets into it. It was a lot bigger this time, so she certainly had been busy.

Araunya lowered him gently back down to lie on it and when he nodded to her, she let his bones go and withdrew her power from him. Every nerve was on fire as his flesh buzzed and warmed with the healing.

“Rest there a moment, Mr. Creed. Bonnie, would you help me? He’ll be fine, now.”

Victor tried to relax and smirked as he heard the gypsy lead her off to the bathroom, telling her instructions for things she usually did herself. She was smart, picking up on Bonnie’s body language almost as well as if she could read her scent.

“Yer tough,” he told the blonde, when she came out with a hot wet hand towel that smelled of sage oil. “I like that in a strappin’ gal.”

“I’m tough?” Bonnie asked, incredulous. “I can hardly believe how you can survive all of this.”

“Wipe the blood away, rub and massage the skin with the oil in the towel,” Araunya told her.

Victor stretched his neck out, moving his head back as the purr sparked with the rubbing. The warmed sage oil on the rough terrycoth soothed mind, senses, and body.

“The sage oil has many benefits,” Araunya’s voice instructed, “most of which Mr. Creed won’t ever need, but it helps with mental fatigue and seems to work very well with his healing factor for erasing the damage and trauma to body and mind.”

“I understand,” Bonnie whispered as she worked. “I like lavender.”

“Not a bad idea. Keep rubbing, all of him.” The gypsy moved off and Victor heard glass tink. He opened his eyes to watch them as she returned. “Here.” Bonnie paused, surprised, when Araunya held bottle and stopper in one hand, poured lavender oil on her palm, and smeared it over Bonnie’s shoulders, throat, and sternum. “Yes, that definitely suits you, and should help him, too.”

When Bonnie got the blood off of his front, he began to roll over, unsurprised that the metal contracted into itself to allow him to lie on the bed. The girl began rubbing blood off of his back, and the mix of sage and lavender around her sweet scent nearly soothed him right to sleep.

“Will that be all, Mr. Creed?” Araunya asked.

He opened one eye to see her standing there with the slightly thicker metal square under her arm and the latched wooden case in hand. “Yup. Lock tha door on yer way out, huh?”

“Certainly.” She smiled and left.

“Yer ‘sposed t’ be tha one restin’, ya know,” he told the girl. She was just about finished wiping off blood and leaving his skin smooth and covered with sage oil. The skin would drink it in, and the healing factor warmed it again as it buzzed through him.

“It’s gotten all over your … fur…”

“Don’t matter none, that stuff can be used like shampoo.”

“That’s all of it.”

“Drop it on tha floor,” he told her. He struggled out of his sage-rubbed stupor and sat up. When she obeyed and came to him, he stripped the sheet toga away from her breasts and pulled her in to kiss her.

Her fingers stroked and pinched one of his nipples. “Are you tired, or can we…?”

“Bit surprised ya ain’t passed out by now, but … yeah…” He lifted his hand and rubbed the shiny lavender oil on her sternum over her heavy breasts. Her body pressed closer, her heat blooming around them to drug him worse than the oils.

“Anything you want,” she whispered. “Anything…”

“Ditch tha toga. Got lube in that nightstand drawer near ya. Li’l bottle called Sylk.”

He watched her obey, drinking in the sight of her body as the sheet fell. When she returned and handed him the plastic bottle, he set it aside and drew her into the space created by one bent leg and the other resting stretched out. She kissed one of his lower fangs again and he couldn’t hide the delicious shiver.

“You like that,” she teased, smiling. “What else do you like?” She rose higher on her knees and set little blunt teeth to a nipple. Pinching it, she sucked at it like he had her nipples. As he slumped into the pleasure, purring, she rose higher and licked up the side of his ear, following the feline curve to the twitching point.

Mid-shudder, he told her, “Suck tha tip.” When she did, he groaned. He captured one of her hands and put it on his swollen dick as it grew harder.

“I can suck other things, too,” she whispered into his ear. “May I take your hair down?”

“It just gets in tha way, but if ya want, I don’t care.” His arms circled her body to hold her breasts against his chest as her fingers worked the twin ties out of his hair one-handed and unwound the bun.

“It’s so long…”

Victor snorted. “Rather ya play with tha dick if ya like long.” One hand slid from her lower back onto her ass. His fingers pushed in between the cheeks and when a fingertip rubbed over her tight anus muscle, she gasped and came in an instant. He immediately stuck the fingers in her pussy and let the slick juices run down them. “Need t’ fuck…”

“Yes, I want it too. I could do anything with you.”

“Gimme time, darlin’, we’ll get through ‘em all. Fer now, I want this.” He rubbed her anus again with slicked fingers from her pussy.

“I’ve never done that, but … if you show me?”

“Ain’t nothin’ t’ show, unless I’m lettin’ ya in mine.” He gave her a wolfish smile, and then was surprised when she giggled. “All ya gotta do is lie back, try t’ relax, an’ lemme fuck it.”

He continued to rub it, letting the tip of his index finger push in. She clutched at him and came twice.

“Yes, I want it…”

“If yer afraid it’ll hurt –”

“I’m not. Is it supposed to hurt?”

He watched her, one eyebrow arching. “Most I’ve shoved int’ were pretty terrified it would. They were mostly right, too.”

She stared at him again with that unnerving soft look. “Do you want to hurt me, Victor? You were excited by pinching my nipples and pricking me with your claws, and it hurt, but it felt so good and it made me…” She blushed and trailed off.

“It made ya come,” he finished for her. “Ain’t gotta be shy ‘bout what ya want, girl. If yer figurin’ out a li’l pain gets ya off, no shame in that. Me, I like pain games, both ways – bein’ hurt can drive me wild.”

“I want to do that … drive you wild; you need to have anything you want. I don’t care if it hurts – if that’s what you want.”

Victor’s breath caught. Twisting his torso, he piled up the pillows against the carved wooden headboard and leaned his back into them, sitting up with his legs bent and the bottoms of his feet on the bed.

“C’mere, face me, straddle my hips an’ stuff yer pussy with my dick.” He gave her his hands to help her balance as she obeyed. He hissed as she grabbed it, as eager as he was, and sat on it. She bit her lower lip as her body settled, her stunning pussy coming and dripping as it swallowed him to the root. “Anythin’, huh?” he asked, and she nodded. “Gonna mark ya. Be still.”

He pulled her forward into his chest, brushed her curls off of one shoulder and carefully set his fangs at the join of neck and shoulder.

“Ooohh…”

He let them prick her, blood beading up, and felt her come again. Lifting his head, he stared into her ocean eyes. “Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m not. Victor please, do it – fuck me, and do it.”

He growled with hunger and dropped his head. The fangs set, and just before he cut them into her, careful and slow, his feet pushed down and his hips worked to thrust up deeper. He bit in, catching the blood with his tongue. His eyes slanted up to watch her face.

Bonnie cried out, her mouth open in a gorgeous pink O that he wanted to fuck. Her body was moved by his thrusts, her nipples shoved up and back through the fur on his chest. She was coming in waves, over and over. Growling, he bit in deeper, his thrusts growing more urgent, rougher.

“Oh my God,” she whispered. Choking on a moan, she began to cry, but when he started to release her from his teeth, her hands reached to hold his head still. He shuddered and began to suck at the flesh, suckling the blood. “Are you drinking it?” she asked, her voice strained. “Yes, take it… I want to feed you.”

Her heat and the tight grip of her rippling pussy was making him feel drugged again, but this time he didn’t fight it, didn’t draw back in confusion or fear. He breathed in deep through his nose as he suckled and swallowed her blood, scenting that she wasn’t afraid. He grew dizzy like he had before, but the healing factor wiped it away. Finally, the fear that the blood loss could harm her drove him to stop. He broke out of the hold of her hands easily. The red drops dotted her skin as he pulled the fangs free. He dropped his mouth once more and let the thick shafts of his lower fangs press against her skin in order to close his lips over the wounds and hold his tongue on them to slow and finally stop the bleeding.

The girl moaned, her body still shifting, her breasts rubbing his chest as his body worked hers tirelessly. The thrusts hadn’t slowed or stopped and her pussy hadn’t quit massaging his cock. He growled against her flesh as he came deep inside and she let out a scream when he just kept thrusting.

Victor lifted his head and moved forward without warning, arms around her back to support her. He laid her on her back, his legs spread wide, knees bending as his feet slid back on the blanket. His cock almost left her when he drew his legs in, his hands lifting her hips to keep them connected. On his knees, holding her up, he drove his softening cock inside her until she came again.

He stilled and watched her lie there panting, his cock buried deep. When her eyes opened, he met her gaze, trying to understand the way she looked at him. Why had she started to cry, was she hurt? She didn’t smell afraid at all.

“What are you thinking?” she whispered.

“Mighta forgot how,” he muttered, still staring back at her.

“Would you let me up?”

He offered his hand as he moved back and pulled her up, licking the bite again before she dismounted. She crawled around him and up to the spill of pillows, lying on them with a small sigh.

“Did I hurt ya?”

“No. Please come here?” She settled on her back as he turned and sat up on his haunches and knees beside her. Smiling, she opened her legs and set her delicate feet on his knees. “Will you show me the other? The…” she flushed a beautiful pink that made him grin. Her fingers moved between her legs as she shifted her hips up and the moment the fingertips stroked over her anus, the grin was wiped off of his face. “This… Will you show me?”

Her feet left his knees as he moved and crawled to her, stretching out on his stomach between her thighs. Unable to speak, he began to suck at her pussy to clean her. He licked her wet thighs too, and then his hands pushed her legs wider.

Swallowing his seed and her slick, he whispered, “Careful how ya move, don’t wanna spear yer legs on tha fangs.” He put his tongue to her anus and began to lick and tap the tip at it. Remembering what she’d said before, he kissed her smooth inner thigh and told her, “This can be pain or pleasure or both an’ some folks like any combo o’ that. Gonna open ya up t’ take me, gonna make it good, but I ain’t really most people’s idea o’ a smooth way t’ try this their first time… Ya dunno yet what ya don’t like, but if ya find out, tell me. I will stop if ya ask.”

“I can’t imagine ever telling you to stop. Victor … before, in the apartment, you talked like if I had a problem with anything, you wouldn’t care. So … I don’t know what to say, but … why will you stop if I ask?”

He shoved away the tangled confusion her words sparked again and latched onto the only practical answer swimming in his head. “Don’t always know my own strength or changin’ moods, but I ain’t done fuckin’ ya, so ya gotta be whole fer that, eh?”

“Okay. I’m not done either,” she replied, and gave him a soft smile. “I’m so relieved, just for not having to feel like a freak for wanting and coming ‘too much’.”

Victor smirked at her. “Ain’t no such thing as comin’ too much, doll. This might make ya do that a lot, so ya go right ahead an’ do it.” With a chuckle, he toyed with her ass and shoved his tongue inside it as soon as he could, growling with heat when she immediately cried out and came.

He took his time and worked her open more carefully than he’d ever bothered with in his life. Tongue, fingers, and lube had her moaning and writhing long before he got anywhere close to the main event. As he stretched her with fingers again, finally sliding in a third, his tongue and lips sucked the slick from her leaking pussy until he made her come again.

She touched him anywhere she could when he shifted and moved, as if she was afraid to stop. He greased up his aching cock, the foreskin retracted in vain a while before, and set the head at the opening he’d made.

“Take a deep breath, darlin’…”

When she did, he pushed the head in. He stopped to let her get used to it, but needed a breather himself. It was tight enough to hurt, and exquisite enough to kill for. He was the first male to claim her this way, and that added to his pleasure.

“Aww, fuck yeah,” he muttered against her throat. “Gotta get me one o’ these.” He shifted to look at her. “Ya alive down there, darlin’?”

“Y-yes...”

Victor met her gaze and held it. “Ya can tell me if it hurts too bad.”

“It hurts a little, but ... I like it. It feels good, too. It feels ... so full...”

He chuckled and nuzzled her throat in the golden cloud of her hair. “Ya ain’t even got t’ full yet. That’s comin’, babe, that’s comin’…”

Every sense was tuned to her and if she tensed, he would slow or pause. He’d figured out that she wasn’t going to tell him if she needed to stop, so he took cues from her body and scent instead. Keeping the lube handy, he added more a time or two until he could start to seriously thrust.

Turning his elbow out, he used his thumb to play with her clit and pussy. The other hand squeezed her heavy breasts, pinching and rolling her nipples. Her scent nearly drowned him when she began to relax and her body loosened enough to let him take his pleasure.

The grip she had on the sides of his thighs was a nice counterpoint to the clench of her ass around his cock.

“Dig yer nails in.”

She was gasping for breath and the sounds she made between those shallow breaths ramped up his heat. Her nails were almost careful at first and then she seemed to remember what he’d said about pain, and they scratched and tried to gouge.

He leaned in to kiss her as he thrust and was caught by her gaze. Tears were standing in her eyes as she watched him, her mouth open and her body shuddering with pleasure. Her scent was nothing but heat layered over his. Victor cocked his head at her when her smile broke free. One hand rose from his thigh to his face. She touched his cheekbone, stroked fingertips along his jaw. The fingers caressed over his brow, and then brushed his hair away from his eyes.

“They’re so beautiful… You’re so beautiful … Victor … oh, please, do it harder…”

He groaned, closed his eyes, and fucked into her deeper and faster. When she gasped, his eyes flew open and saw her watching him again. The tears slipped down her cheeks. He caught one and brushed it away.

The moment he kissed her, he began to come. Throwing his head back away from her, his roar rang out. He could feel her hands on his chest, stroking it. Her nails pinched his nipples and the pleasure of pain stopped his breath, choking him into silence. His jaw was extended and saliva dripped from his fangs, but she didn’t shrink from it.

Victor fell over her, his forearms striking the bed on either side of her shoulders. His jaw snapped closed as she lifted her head and he shivered when her tongue licked his clenched teeth. Carefully, he pulled free from her body and left his weight on his knees and arms as he turned his head and rested it on her breasts.

Her final orgasm shuddered through her as her hands lifted to hold his head and stroke his hair. Her smooth and perfect long legs moved to settle on his thighs.

“Are ya…” he tried to ask, and gasped for breath.

“Shhh… I’m fine. Rest,” she whispered. Her fingers combed through and played gently with his curling long hair as he tried to slow his breathing.

“Bonnie,” he murmured against her breasts. “I gotta find a way t’ kill ‘em… Can’t let ‘em … hurt ya…”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way, but don’t worry about them now. Lie down…”

Victor forced himself to rise, to move. He half-fell to his back and she snuggled in. He picked her up and put her on him, one arm around her. She laid her head on his chest and sighed, every muscle relaxing as she molded herself over him.

He couldn’t think, couldn’t speak. His thoughts fell to pieces as a gentle calm pulled him down into a sleep free of nightmares.

~ ~ ~

Victor woke with a start, not feeling her slight weight on him anymore.

“I’m glad you got a little rest,” she spoke softly beside him.

Her golden curls hung around her shoulders, beautifully tousled. She was sitting on her haunches as he often did, with hands on her thighs. He took in her heavy breasts, a waist and abdomen toned but not too thin, and flaring hips with long legs… She was … so beautiful … and not afraid. Deep blue eyes watched him as he studied her, a small smile tugging at her pink lips.

“How long was I out?”

“Maybe fifteen minutes.”

“An’ yer not tired?” When she shrugged, he grasped her hands and pulled her down to him. “Watchin’ me sleep?”

“I don’t want to stop looking at you – I’m afraid you won’t be real anymore if I do.” She snuggled into him and he kissed her.

“Need t’ go hunt ‘em down, find a way t’ take ‘em out – they won’t quit, an’ sooner or later they’d find ya.”

“I … wish I knew why.”

“Maybe I can throttle that outta one o’ ‘em – I’m a pretty persuasive guy.”

“I noticed.” Her hand wandered and found his cock. The moment she touched it, it roused for her.

“We can’t just fuck ‘til they find us. That plan didn’t go so well tha last time.”

She rose and grasped it, picked it up and straddled his thigh on her knees. He reached down and rubbed a fingertip teasingly through the little curly blonde patch of hair that had escaped her razor over that amazing pussy. When she moaned and shivered, he grinned.

“I want to taste it…” she whispered.

“Ya’d just end up with it shoved down yer throat.”

“Do you like that?”

Victor smirked up at her. “Pretty fond, sure. Did I miss tha part where we signed up fer some kinda sex triathlon?” He regretted the joke when she slumped a little and lowered her head.

“I’m sorry. You’re tired, and I just –”

“Hush, babe – no shame, remember? Look at me.” She lifted her head, eyes shining with tears, to meet his. “Ya wanna play deep throat, ain’t gonna hear me tell ya no.”

Those soft and full pink lips parted and she confessed, “I don’t know how, but … I want to.”

Victor watched her quietly for a moment before he whispered, “I’ll teach ya.” His finger played with her pussy again and she twitched and moaned.

“I want to pleasure you, though…”

“Need t’ be relaxed t’ learn this trick – yer ass ain’t gotta gag reflex. Dunno a better way t’ relax ya.” He fingered her until she came twice. “Stay where ya are an’ pull tha dick down t’ ya, so ya can take it in with yer neck extended straight an’ yer head back a bit – lines up tha mouth an’ throat. Once ya grasp what yer doin’, if ya wanna rub one out on my thigh, won’t bother me none.” When she obeyed and pulled it down, he groped for the lube and handed it to her. “This stuff ain’t gotta taste, best slick goin’ fer all sorts o’ games. Grease it up good. Then just take a deep breath an’ slide it in far as ya can. When ya hit yer gag reflex, stop, don’t back off. Get used t’ it a bit an’ work on goin’ deeper. If ya try t’ breathe after it’s in yer throat, ya can make yerself choke.”

She slicked up his dick and smiled to watch the foreskin retract. “Are you supposed to push in?”

“Gonna try my damndest not t’ – ya need t’ be tha one controllin’ it t’ learn. This ain’t an endurance test, neither. When ya can put it in yer throat, pull off it a bit t’ breathe, use yer hand or yer tongue awhile an’ then deep breath an’ go again. Fer hands, I like it rough. Hard strokes, light an’ hard squeezes, fast then slow. Squeeze tha shit outta my sack if ya feel brave – love that.”

“Okay… How do I open enough?”

“Stick tha tip o’ yer tongue out onto yer bottom lip an’ open yer mouth like sayin’ ‘ahhh’ fer a doc – it flattens yer tongue. Act like ya gotta yawn. Those tricks counter tha gag reflex. Tha rest is just practice an’ gettin’ used t’ it. Swallowin’ helps t’ pull it down. Once ya can really get it lodged in there, make a swallow motion again – that’s tha killer bit. Makin’ ‘em come straight down tha throat’s tha brass ring.”

She smiled down at him. “The voice of experience?”

He winked at her and smirked. “I like all tha toys.”

Bonnie leaned over and tickled her tongue tip at his slit. When he sucked in a breath, she hesitated. “I hope I can remember all of that.”

“He’s a trigger-happy critter, don’t worry – ya can make ‘im spout easy. Ain’t gotta be a porn star yer first go, just – play.”

Victor saw her stick her tongue out on her lip, open wide, and move down. After that, claws shooting out to stab the bed, his eyes nearly rolled back into his skull. She took the advice of ‘play’ to heart, and he forced himself to watch her – so he wouldn’t forget to keep still.

With many starts and stops, she slowly began to get it deeper. Her hands and tongue, however, needed no instruction. She worked her hands in counterpoint, then one of them gave him a hard sweeping stroke from head to balls, her fingers rippling individually along the squeeze. As that hand reached his balls, she took another deep breath and he felt his head slide in and pop past the resistance at the entrance to her throat. In the same moment, she grabbed his balls and squeezed them hard, her nails digging into the sensitive furry sack.

“Bonnie… Holy…”

She might have been about to pull off, but his voice seemed to spur her on. One swallow dragged his cock deeper and another nearly turned him savage. He didn’t feel his sack draw up tighter because she was almost crushing it in her fist. Instinct destroyed his control and his hips bucked slightly, his cock flexing as it was pushed deeper. Her body went utterly still, the fist gripped his sack tighter and he blew – straight down her throat.

The sound she tore from his open mouth was more scream than roar and he had to fight his body to stop himself from thrusting. Her pussy was dripping into the fur of his thigh.

“Pull off, can’t hold it,” he told her, his voice a rasp. She coughed and gagged when it slid free, but then grabbed it and moved to stuff it into her contracting pussy. “Oh, shit, babe…”

He growled and shoved up with his hips. They both grabbed for each other when she nearly toppled off of him and ended up with fingers clasped on both hands. The claws were curled long and lethal, scratching the backs of her hands, but it only made her moan as she used his hands to help her balance and let him fuck her rough.

Some of his cum had spilled on his belly when his cock had left her mouth. He kept pumping, and she cried out, her heat filling his lungs and hazing his thoughts. He’d stopped coming, but continued to thrust until she’d come more times and sagged in his grip, panting for breath.

“Let go,” he whispered, “don’t wanna cut ya.”

She pulled her stiff fingers free of his and he caught her and picked her up off of his softening dick. She sank down with her head over his hip. He was shocked when her head moved and her little tongue lapped at the thick pearly cum that was slowly sinking into the fur trail that led to his bludgeoned balls. The ache that lingered in his sack was exquisite, even as he felt the buzz of healing begin to stop it.

Guided by his hand, claws retracted, she struggled up to lay her head on his chest. He circled his arm around her back and let out a long breath.

“Was that … good? I-I mean, I guess it was…”

Victor met her worried gaze and the soft smile that bloomed on his lips was something new. “Yer voice is wrecked – didn’t plan t’ shove in like that, but hellfire, girl… Yeah, that was good. Ya almost killed me.”

“I … liked that. It made me … come, when you pushed.” She coughed again and blushed.

“Yeah well, feel free t’ practice again later, but ya should probly be a bit more experienced at it before ya lemme off tha chain t’ all-out face-fuck ya.”

“When I couldn’t breathe at all, it was a little scary, but … it was hot, too.”

“Damn straight – breathplay’s one o’ my fave kinks. Not much can kill me, but still gotta breathe. Avoid suckin’ so hard next time when ya don’t got it shoved in yer throat – wears out yer jaw faster. Ya can just move up an’ down an’ let yer tongue do tha work.”

“I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to swallow with so much of it in there, but then I could.”

“That was tha part that nearly killed me, babe. Between that an’ tha ball torture, felt like ya were yankin’ tha fuckin’ cum outta my nuts by force.”

“Um, is that … a good thing?”

“Yup. I just need t’ remember t’ let ya control tha pacin’.”

“At least while I’m learning? I like the sound of ‘face-fuck’…” She blushed and when he grinned at her, she giggled – which made her cough.

“Go easy on yer voice a bit. Shoulda had some water in reach. Get up here an’ kiss me. I gotta haul my ass outta this snatch trap an’ go kill zombies fer ya. Then we can fuck an’ suck all ya want.”

Her kiss was soft, but full of passion. Without any effort, it pulled his thoughts away from the hunt and the danger – but he knew their enemies wouldn’t quit. In the end, he gripped her shoulders to stop that mouth from swallowing him whole.

He sat up and she struggled up beside him. Lifting a hand, his fingers brushed at her curls. When she opened her arms, he let her draw him in. He settled his forehead on her shoulder over the fresh wounds of his mark in her skin. Her golden hair curtained his face and the calming scent of lavender lingered there, blocking out the smells of sex, sweat, feral musk, and female heat. Her fingers toyed gently with his hair, and he breathed her in deep, trying to lock her scent inside his damaged brain forever.

 _It won’t last,_ his fears whispered. _Once tha enemy is gone, what reason would she have t’ stay? Don’t matter,_ he thought, and pushed the fears away. _She has t’ be safe._

~ ~ ~

Victor dressed simply in blue jeans and his boots. The first shirt she handed him from the drawer he pointed at in his closet was a long-sleeved purple t-shirt. He grabbed a red bandana and had her brush out his hair and roll it into a tight bun again at the nape of his neck. He knotted the bandana above it, grabbed the duffel bag he’d packed, and headed out onto the suite’s balcony.

Across the road and the railroad tracks, the Hudson River snaked along, indifferent to the trials they’d faced. The sound of it, and the wind through the trees, soothed him.

He kissed her when she followed him out, wrapped once again in the purple sheet. “Gotta go huntin’.”

“You could have showered with me first?”

“I’d rather go kill undead weirdos smellin’ like yer delicious pussy.” He smirked when she blushed again. “Stay here, relax, an’ be safe.”

“Come back to me alive, promise me…”

“Darlin’, they’re hard t’ kill, but I’m next t’ impossible t’ shine on – ya seen that fer yerself. I’ll be back. Gonna wanna fuck ya more then.”

“I want you to.” She pressed herself into his chest.

Victor slung the bag over his shoulder and brushed the curls away from her bright blue eyes. “Damn, girl – what ya do t’ me…”

He stepped back, turned, and leapt over the balcony railing into the dark. Moving quickly through the trees to the stolen car, he didn’t look back – he was too afraid he wouldn’t be able to leave her if he did.

_Work first, then play. Hunt ‘em, make ‘em talk, then find a way t’ make ‘em die. Faster, pussycat – kill, kill…_

*****************************************************************

Bonnie hung the damp towel in the bathroom once she was dressed and began to blowdry her hair. The natural blonde curls bounced back to life after she brushed it all out. She put the hairdryer up and touched the wide boar bristle wooden brush. It had been here, but apparently it was Victor’s. He’d let her brush his long curling blonde hair and wind it back up at the nape of his neck before he’d left.

_I’ve never seen such beautiful hair on a man. Such a shame to hide it like that…_

The bathroom had amused her. It had the look of a very old room, and all the fixtures, even the tub, sink, and toilet, were a pale blush color – almost pink. The tiles around the tub and covering all of the walls were in a checker pattern of the same color with mauve tiles checkered into it. The mauve tiles also covered the floor and matched the towels that hung on towel racks. The shower curtain was pink – with mauve flowers on it.

_A tough guy who doesn’t care about remodeling a pink room – that has to be a mark for the plus column._

She set the brush down and turned away from the mirror, going back out to the couch to sit and put on black tennis shoes. The short woman had brought her the shoes and white socks with the clothes – donated by women who were obviously prostitutes. It was also odd to be wearing a tight black tank shirt with tan pants that almost looked like an old military style.

_Not what I’ve ever thought a prostitute would own – but nice of them to help. The socks are insanely comfortable…_

Hungry and feeling a little more calm, she rose. Her gaze was drawn immediately to the rumpled and messy bed. Some parts of her were still a bit sore, but just thinking about all that they’d done made her borrowed panties grow damp. Flushing with old shame, she frowned a moment later.

 _Stop worrying about it. They were wrong and stupid. Victor likes how my body reacts and he’s … I can’t even describe him. He’s like me, too – his body can just keep going, and he said they blamed me because they couldn’t keep up. I hope he gets back soon… It feels frightening to not have him here._ She hesitated at the door. _I don’t want to bother Ruth. I’ll just see what there is in the kitchen._ Leaving the door to Victor’s suite open, she crept down the fancy staircase as quietly as she could.

The house was huge and she got turned around a couple of times before she found the kitchen. The fact that it had a pool table sitting in the middle of the large space didn’t seem that strange at all after a few of the rooms she’d stumbled into.

 _At least it’s easy to tell where the refrigerator is._ When she opened it, she shivered in the burst of cold air and then stared at a white bowl with a note stuck to its side. The note had her name on it. Peering into it, she was delighted to find a chicken Caesar salad. _I’m liking Ruth more and more._

When her search for a fork was unsuccessful, she gave up. Carrying one of the bar stools over to the smaller window, she set it near the head of a kitchen table where she could watch the driveway through the larger bay window with square panes. When she was perched on the stool, shoes on the lower bars for balance, she held the bowl on her lap and ate the slices of chicken and vegetables with her fingers.

With glances at the window, she looked around the room. In addition to the pool table, one corner near it held another odd bit of décor. It looked like a red leather L-shaped booth from an old bar. It had a little wooden table in front of it covered by a black and white fancy tablecloth. A black boom box stereo sat on the wide top of the leather booth furniture, next to an antique lamp. Two cue sticks were on the pool table with the cueball, but the rest of the balls were racked up and ready for a game. There wasn’t any dust on it, either.

_Someone wanted the kitchen to look like an old bistro or pool hall? Mom would freak out and probably offer to redecorate for free, but … it’s kind of … fun._

The kitchen appliances were all in a row on one wall, and the wooden support beams and column posts here and there reminded her of her grandparents’ old lake house. The trash can was even set next to one of the posts, just like her grandmother had hers.

At the entry to the kitchen, a poster of something to do with Don Quixote was framed and hanging on the wall with a little half-circle shelf mounted under it. A mate to her bar stool was pulled up under the shelf, which held a phone.

The phone was almost as tempting as the stunning collection of bottles on one of the counters in the kitchen.

 _Don’t be silly, you don’t even drink,_ she admonished herself. _Besides, you need to stay awake and wait up for when Victor gets back._ The shower had felt amazing, but she was still tempted to have a bath. _I hope he didn’t go all the way back to New York, but if he did, I probably have time to relax in a hot soak._ She smiled at the thought of him. Just hearing him moan in pleasure had gotten her more excited than anything else in her life. _I know what I want to do when he comes back…_

“Midnight snack, Bonnie?” Ruth asked, entering the room from a door she hadn’t even seen.

“Oh, Ruth! Sorry, I didn’t see you there. I didn’t get hungry till after he left. Thanks for this,” she lifted the bowl slightly, “and the clothes,” she added.

The woman was dressed in casual clothing now. Bonnie smiled as she watched her cross to a drawer next to the stove and fetch a fork. After handing it to her, she pulled out one of six chairs and sat at the kitchen table facing her.

Bonnie set the fork in the bowl and sighed. “Thanks, again. I’m a mess.”

“Not at all. How long has he been gone?”

“About half an hour. Damn. My brain’s filled with white noise. Did he tell you? About tonight?” Forgetting she had a fork, she nibbled another carrot slice she’d picked up with her fingers.

Ruth leaned her forearm on the table. “No. I’m just supposed to look after you.”

Holding the bowl carefully in her lap again, Bonnie gestured with a hand palm up held out at her side. “Great, ‘look after me’. Like I’m ten years old. He’s so – um… What can you… Will you tell me about him?”

“Why, you didn’t just meet tonight, did you?”

“Yeah. Yeah, believe it or not – and I’m not sure I even believe it. He saved my life. Twice.”

“Saved your – tonight. Huh. So what do I know about Victor Creed…? Well … he likes Monty Python, hates Brad Pitt, and a couple of times I’ve caught him reading John Sandford novels. One time he told me he used to think about trying to make a living building custom furniture … but I couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. I could tell you what he likes in bed, but I’m sure you already know.” Her smile was full of honest humor, but no judgment.

Bonnie smiled nervously back and blushed.

“But past that, girl, I don’t know a damn thing about him, except that he can be as mean and heartless as the Devil himself. And if someone had come in here this afternoon and told me Creed would show up tonight and ask me to protect someone … I’d have called that person a liar to his face. Where’d he say he was going, anyway?”

Bonnie nibbled on a cucumber slice and smiled again at the memory of how he’d looked when he said it. His fierce expression and that growling noise had made her feel … safe.

“Hunting,” she replied, and picked up the fork.

*****************************************************************

The lightning storm gearing up over New York City reflected his mood as he closed in on his prey. He’d found the bald Leonid the same way they hoped to find him – by staking out places he was sighted at before. Listening to the man talk into his radio confirmed that they had bought a mole in the NYPD, as he’d suspected.

 _Can’t fault ‘em there – hell, I own a few myself._ Silent as a ghost, Victor scaled the wall of another one of his smaller dens, the apartment the X-Men had once infiltrated when they’d been hunting him.

Leonid appeared to be alone on the roof as he made his status report. “Sir, checking in. I’m watching another apartment building. Our contact in the NYPD confirmed that Creed’s been spotted here regularly over the last five years.” Radio in one gloved hand, he held binoculars in the other and scanned the streets around the building.

The voice from the radio cracked and popped a little, the reception getting dodgy in the oppressive air of the coming storm. “When you go, you may not be aware if he arrives with the girl after.”

“No, we’ve got the usual camera arrays installed – I’ll be moving to the next anticipated target in a few minutes. Just thought I’d hang around, see if I got lucky.”

“All right. Stay sharp.”

“Understood. Out.”

Crawling up onto the roof, Victor lunged at him and slashed his claws into the radio and binoculars, shattering both into a rain of shards. “No more radios!” His attack shoved Leonid down onto his back as claws sliced his weapons belt. “No more guns, neither!” The handgun he wore on the belt and the assault rifle hanging at his back were cut into slices, another grenade flying across the roof – harmless with its pin engaged.

The man tried to punch him, but he reared back, holding his fists together like a wrecking ball. He landed on his knees and thrust his heavy upper body down, striking Leonid’s chin with fists and driving his skull into the roof.

His enemy was fast to recover, twisted, kicked out, and rose to a crouch as Victor swiped claws over the space where his head had been. Leonid drew his long-bladed knife. “If you had a brain in your head, you’d surrender and tell us where she is!”

“Yeah, that’s likely.”

Victor growled and jumped, body-slamming into him and knocking the air out of him. He put him down again, but then realized the knife had been stabbed into his chest. The hilt was sticking out, the blade buried deep. Blood poured from the wound.

“More likely than you getting… uh…” the bravado in the voice faltered as he saw Victor yank the knife out and witnessed the bleeding stopping.

“Ya know … I’m really sick o’ these knives.” He licked his blood from the blade before putting it between his teeth and with a loud snap, forced his mouth closed. The fangs shattered the blade into metal toothpicks.

Leonid froze in the act of rising to one knee. “Oh…” he said, staring with his mouth open.

Victor grabbed him with one arm around his neck to hold him and dragged him off to the short concrete wall at the edge of the roof. His other hand grasped and held an arm out and set it against the edge just above the elbow. “Been thinkin’ ‘bout ya an’ yer boys … how yer put t’gether. Skin’s tough – gotta be, fer me not t’ cut right through it. Reminds me o’ a guy I know, name o’ Cage.”

With a satisfying crack, he broke the arm above the elbow, reveling in the man’s scream.

“But see, I did leave some scratches. Ya ain’t invulnerable, an’ that makes me wonder – given some time an’ some determination…” Another crack, and the elbow joint was broken. The scream was longer, with real pain leaking into it. “Just how much damage I can do.” Finally, he broke the wrist and that scream was exquisite.

“Gnnaah! God!” Leonid cried out.

Victor pulled him back from the edge, bent over him and held him in a headlock. The wounded arm was bent into a strange shape as the man held it with his other hand.

“Time fer twenty questions.”

“You bastard… You stinking pig…”

One thick arm locked around his throat, Victor’s other hand gripped the bald skull, ready to yank and twist at any moment. “Who are ya? Why do ya want ‘er dead?”

In a wavering whisper, Leonid gave in. “I’m going to tell you, but not because you’re forcing me … because I want you to know now. Bonnie Hale is carrying a plague – a bio-engineered stealth weapon. Undetectable for seventy-two hours, but then … instant epidemic. Let the soldiers get back among their own, then take them out. Take them all out.” The man strained in his abruptly outraged hold, gasping as it tightened. “But it gets better… You see, she was infected by mistake – one of our own men made a stupid, stupid mistake and infected a civilian. So we killed him – and now we’ve got to kill her.”

Victor’s hateful hiss dripped saliva on the man’s head. “No. Yer lyin’.”

“There is no antidote for this plague, Mr. Creed – no inoculation, and unless she dies, we’ve got about sixteen hours left before this continent is scraped clean.”

“No! Ya lousy motherfucker, yer lyin’ t’ me!” With a thick crunch, he broke the man’s neck. “Yer lyin’!”

Surging to his feet at the back of the man who had died on his knees, Victor shoved his forearms under the jaw and grasped his wrist in his hand. Rearing his body backward as he yanked the head back, his growl erupted into a roar of hate as he ripped the head off of the body to a chorus of snapping bones and wet, tearing flesh. He held it up as lighting cracked down the street, illuminating the headless body as it toppled to the roof.

He threw the head down at the body’s feet where it landed on its bloody stump and slowly tilted. Horrified, he began to run. “Yer lyin’…” he muttered, as he leapt the wall at the edge and jumped off of the roof into the storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to point out that Kalashnikov’s lab is in a building with a huge sign out front that reads ‘Infectious Diseases Research Center’, which I find very amusing. What a title! Most communities would be in ‘Not in my town’ mode and get that moved to a more remote location. Therefore, while the location isn’t ever really defined, I’m going to say it is in a remote location, or borders landfills or something, because nobody in New York City would put up with it being next to their local schools, grocery store, or water supply.
> 
> Also, I simply have to fix a few details, or surrender my self-respect as a researcher: when a sergeant or similar level of authority gathers all the details of an investigation into a BOLO order (Be On the Look Out) and he/she then gets a dispatcher to send it out as an APB (All-Points Bulletin), usually as a text or teletype message, then all points or stations can start looking for a suspect or vehicle description that is described in the BOLO. BOLO designates an order to do something, while APB designates who the order goes out to. If you only say you are sending out an APB, it is like mailing an empty envelope. This information is coming from a person with over fifteen years of experience in law enforcement, and from another person who is a friend of mine, and serves our community in a sheriff’s office as a patrolling officer, to corroborate it. I personally think it is silly that some disease scientists are going to be able to hack the NYPD and send out an APB. Therefore, in my story, the undead scientists have a sergeant on the payroll, and that is who Leonid contacted to get a BOLO sent out on the descriptions of Victor, Bonnie, and the Cadillac.
> 
> There are a few other details I’m fixing, such as Victor asking Bonnie if she wants to eat, sending the girls away because he knows there is a risk of being found, and the fact that bullets don’t melt away into thin air when Victor is shot. He would have to get them out. To avoid slowing down the story, I invented a mutant character that can get them out all at once and then he can heal. “Faster, pussycat, kill, kill” is a reference to the Russ Meyer film if the same name, from 1965. “Cage” refers to the Marvel character Luke Cage, whose skin pretty much can’t be pierced or cut. Thanks for reading! – AnonGrimm (@MET_Fic)


	3. To Kill the Dead

I see nothing in your eyes, and the more I see the less I like  
Is it over yet, in my head?  
I know nothing of your kind, and I won’t reveal your evil mind  
Is it over yet? I can’t win

So sacrifice yourself, and let me have what’s left  
I know that I can find the fire in your eyes  
I’m going all the way, get away, please

You take the breath right out of me  
You left a hole where my heart should be  
You got to fight just to make it through  
‘cause I will be the death of you

This will be all over soon  
Pour salt into the open wound  
Is it over yet? Let me in

So sacrifice yourself, and let me have what’s left  
I know that I can find the fire in your eyes  
I’m going all the way, get away, please

You take the breath right out of me  
You left a hole where my heart should be  
You got to fight just to make it through  
‘cause I will be the death of you

I’m waiting, I’m praying, realize, start hating

You take the breath right out of me  
You left a hole where my heart should be  
You got to fight just to make it through  
‘cause I will be the death of you

~ Breath (Breaking Benjamin)

*****************************************************************

Far too keyed up to rest, Bonnie hadn’t been able to resist exploring Victor’s suite. She’d been afraid to move or pick up the weird masks on display stands on the mantel over the fireplace, but she’d touched each of them and discovered they were carved wood. They seemed old, like museum pieces, and she suspected they weren’t reproductions. Every one of them was exotic, either from Africa or some Pacific island.

 _Mom would know,_ she thought, and sighed.

Two posters were framed on different walls. One was of the movie _Oceans 11_ in English and Japanese, and the other she didn’t recognize, showing a large profile of a Native American chief. There were no overhead lights, just small desk lamps dotted all over, and a surprising amount of candles. A trio of them was sitting on a cloth on the heavy coffee table between the brown leather couch and some stylish armchairs and ottomans. All the furniture looked antique and expensive – a world away in style from the brownstone apartment. She’d found clean sheets and remade the bed, finally noticing that the carved antique headboard was decorated with some kind of songbird.

_Going by the bedding and décor in both places, he likes blue, red, purple, and earth tones._

Victor’s suite was one long rectangle, and since it had two very different fireplaces, she assumed it used to be two rooms. A huge pricey television on a stand sat in a corner in front of a large armchair, on the side with the smaller fireplace in a brick accent wall.

The wooden floor was covered by area rugs where the furniture was grouped into specific spaces. It had a private balcony – the way Victor had left, for some reason – but it was too cold to look around out there. She had noticed a chair and table, and a large crystal ashtray. She hadn’t seen him smoke, but the leather jacket he’d abandoned at the brownstone had smelled like cigarettes.

Bonnie smiled. _Mom and Dad would freak over me bringing home a smoker. Maybe they wouldn’t even notice the fangs?_

After browsing through shelves of very eclectic books and a scattering of odds and ends that rivalled her own knick-knack collection back home, she headed back into the closet that was almost larger than her apartment in New York. Drawers, shelves, and hangers held both casual clothes and some suits that probably cost more than her rent. Ignoring it all, she was drawn to take a closer look at the odd items on top of one dresser and hanging on the wall over it.

 _Wow. Those are kinky sex toys and … whips…_ She wasn’t sure what some of the items were for, but the whips gave her a shiver. _Are they for the girl, or … for him?_

Another mask hung with the whips, but this one was red leather and obviously intended to be worn by someone. She carefully picked up the shorter red leather whip with many lashes hanging from the handle and ran her fingers through them while she held it.

A cordless phone on another dresser rang and made her jump. She hurriedly hung the whip back up and answered it. “Hello?”

Victor’s voice answered, speaking her name with relief. “Bonnie.”

“Victor! Where are you?”

“Central Park, but that don’t matter, listen – are ya… Are ya feelin’ awright? Do ya feel okay? How’re ya feelin’?”

“Do I feel okay?” She left the closet and wandered out into the main room.

“Yeah, do ya – did Ruth, uh … did ya ever eat anythin’?”

“Did I eat –? Look, physically I’m fine, but … I’ve, I’ve had some time here…”

“Yeah?”

“Did you find out what’s going on? Who those men were, why they wanted to kill me? I know you’ve only been gone a couple of hours, but it – it feels a lot longer.” She could hear someone coming up the stairs. It was probably Ruth bringing the coffee she’d offered to make.

Victor sounded rushed and … worried. Worried for her? “Listen, ya just… Ya just stay where ya are, okay? Stay safe.”

Bonnie glanced behind her and saw Ruth come in with a steaming mug. Turning back to look at his wooden masks, she held the phone in both hands and lowered her voice. “Victor, I’m – I… Can’t we just leave? Just go somewhere, forget about all this?”

“Ya want t’… Ya want … t’ go away … with me?”

“Isn’t… Isn’t that … what you want…?” Her stomach flipped, afraid she’d gone too far.

His silence was broken in a rush. “I told ya before – an’ I meant it. I’ll keep ya with me, Bonnie. I’ll keep ya saf –” With a click, he was cut off.

“Victor? Hello? Hello?” She held the phone out and turned to look at Ruth. “What happened?” She tried to hit redial, but it did nothing. “Damn it! Why isn’t this working, Ruth?”

“I’m sorry, sweetie … call return is blocked on all the lines here.”

“Damn it.” She reluctantly traded the phone for the mug of coffee.

“You should try to rest. He could be hours yet. Feel free to keep exploring, though.” She gave Bonnie a wink and smiled.

“Will he be mad about that?”

“He wouldn’t have left you in here alone if he was worried about it.”

“Can I ask, um… What’s with the whips? Does he like to whip girls?”

Ruth chuckled. “Most of that is for the girls to use on him. Does that bother you?”

“No…?”

“All right, then.” Smiling again, she turned to go. “Let me know if you need anything, or come downstairs if you want company. I’m staying up until he gets back.”

“Okay. I might find something to read…”

When Ruth left and closed the door, Bonnie returned to the bookshelves. She was drawn to a ledger-type notebook bound in leather and opened it to find it full of handwriting. Carrying it with the coffee to the couch in front of the blazing fire, she settled in.

It didn’t seem to be a diary, or she would have put it back. It was notes, lists, and snippets of quotes from things like movies or classic books. The handwriting was a mess of sharp angles and large letters that slanted every which way. The words had been put down with such pressure that many of the end points had pierced the paper. Near the center, she found a list of odd words: Wolvie, Storm, Rogue, Cyclops, Beast, Angel, Phoenix, Cueball…

Sighing, she laid the ledger down open to the list as a feeling of restlessness crept over her. _I know you had to go, but I need you to hurry back…_ She glanced at the neat bed and felt her face flush. _I don’t care how strange this all is. I’ve never known a man like you, and I … want you._

*****************************************************************

He’d pulled the hood of his black raincoat up and put on sunglasses to keep the pouring rain out of his eyes. Since he’d left his phone locked up in his room, he had headed to the nearest working pay phone in Central Park to call Bonnie.

She had stunned him silent when she asked if they could go away together. He had tracked the approach of a large human male and his motorcycle, reeking of gasoline, steel, and sweat. The machine was turned off over on the main road and the man approached without fear.

Swallowing the growl to avoid scaring Bonnie, he was shocked when the man reached around him and pressed the toggle down to hang up on her while he was still speaking into the receiver.

“Okay, pal, that’s long enough, get off the damn – uh…” He backed away with one hand up to ward him off, the acrid stench of fear bursting from his soaking wet heavy body as Victor turned on him, glaring and growling.

 _Rough biker type, probly happy t’ donate ‘is motorcycle – after he learns some manners._ He was fast, actually getting a punch in that broke Victor’s sunglasses before he knocked the bearded idiot to the wet walking path.

Frustration and anger sparked into a murderous ferocity with lightning speed as he used the man’s death to regain his chilly calm. Brute strength tore and rended far more than claws cut, and he dismembered the body almost before the man could finish dying. He let the rain dilute the blood and stuffed the parts he didn’t eat into a metal trash bin. Chuckling at the ‘put it here’ sign bolted to it, he bent down and picked up the fool’s keys.

Bonnie’s words still hung in his thoughts – confusing and exciting at once. He picked up the phone receiver and almost dialed the house again. Growling, he hung it up.

_Those dead freaks won’t stop, so it’s up t’ me t’ stop ‘em. No point in chasin’ my tail or moonin’ ‘bout ‘til I can make ‘em gimme an antidote fer tha girl. Bullshit they didn’t make one – nobody smart ‘nuff t’ do what they’ve done is dumb ‘nuff t’ skip that step._

Leaving the biker’s parts in the bin, he walked off in the rain until he found the red and chrome Harley Davidson Softail. Snorting at the ridiculous flames painted on the tank, he threw a leg over and started it up. Bonnie had given him the address of the lab where she worked as they’d driven out of the city, and with a ride acquired, it wouldn’t take long to get there.

By the time he reached it, lots of him was soaked despite the raincoat, but his duffel bag was lined and the supplies were just fine inside it. He left the motorcycle just inside the treeline and hoisted the bag back over his shoulder.

Slipping a ring that looked like a golden flat disk onto his finger, he stood at the edge of the woods and watched the full moon settle over the complex.

Hidden between woods and a collection of landfills, the Infectious Diseases Research Center was dark except for security lights and the only multi-story building present. Every floor of that building was well-lit, but Bonnie had told him most of the staff left at sundown.

He had a lot of work to do before the real fun could begin, but if it all went according to plan, he’d be back with Bonnie and armed with a cure – unless Leonid had lied.

_Don’t matter none if he did – they still need t’ die. Gonna be a pleasure showin’ ‘em they can._

He studied the complex and buildings with all senses open. Lifting his chin, he scented the air deeply, taking in all that the place could tell him. Folding his arms and giving a snort at their pathetic fortifications, he narrowed his eyes under the raincoat hood and glared.

“Knock, knock.”

*****************************************************************

Piotr and Aleksander patrolled the halls of the research center close to the empty front lobby. As they passed their comrades, all of them bristling with automatic rifles, they nodded to them.

“See, Creed’s got stealth written all over him,” Piotr said.

“Guy that big? You serious?”

“Bet your ass. Used to be Special Forces – now he’s a professional assassin. Plus, you know, he’s got the whole mutant thing.”

“But let me tell you, this place is wired,” Aleksander boasted. “Motion detectors, infrared, pressure plates … everything. We got it covered. Steathly or not, the second anybody tries to come through this door, we’ll know it.”

They turned to face the lobby doors and screamed when a massive fireball blew them inward and sent them flying.

*****************************************************************

The fireball knocked his two least favorite zombie boys to the floor, unconscious – but likely not for long. Tossing his hood back, Victor smirked as he picked up one of their assault rifles. Pleased when they came to and started struggling to rise, he opened fire on them both from a few feet away to keep them down a little longer. He tossed the rifle down as he reached behind him under his long coat to grasp the weapons hanging from his belt.

“Ya can have yer gun back.” Lifting a heavy steel wedge axe in each hand, he grinned down at them. “I brought my own toys.”

*****************************************************************

Cyril cocked his pistol behind Kalashnikov’s seat in the lab. The monitor before them showed the carnage happening in the lobby.

“Couldn’t have asked for better.”

Kalashnikov frowned at the monitor. “He won’t make it this far.”

“Sure he will – when I drag him in here by his head. Scientific acumen or not, ‘Kalashnikov’, you’re about to be very glad you brought me on board.”

*****************************************************************

Victor grinned at Aleksander as he watched the thing struggle up first with knife and pistol in hand.

Brandishing the blade, he yelled, “I’ll carve your damn eyes out, freak!”

“Shut up.” Victor threw both axes with all of his strength. One hacked off a wrist and the other lodged in the neck as the undead soldier’s weapons fell. He set both hands to the shaft of the axe and crunched it through to sever the head.

Piotr shot at him with a pistol and only hit Victor once, his aim wild. Grabbing up both axes, Victor leapt on him, hacking at his neck on either side. Kicking his fallen enemy over onto his belly, he set one axe against the back of Piotr’s neck and pulled the other one over his shoulder with the blade reversed to use it as a hammer.

“Now hold still…” With a satisfying thunk and crack, the head popped off and rolled, landing on the cheek that still bore Victor’s scratches from before.

Growling, he heard others coming. Their leader’s voice rang down the hall as they approached to investigate the explosion.

“The first team had this guy beaten, no problem. It’s just a matter of … of … my God…” They froze and stared.

Victor gripped the corpse of Aleksander by the jacket collar and lifted to pile him over Piotr’s body. He held up one of the axes in his other hand and showed it to them. “So – who’s next?”

*****************************************************************

Bonnie stared at the cordless phone receiver in her hand after she sat on the couch again next to Victor’s open ledger. Taking a deep breath, she dialed home.

Her father answered, and his voice made her loneliness worse. “Hello?”

“Dad?” She crossed her legs and held her ankle – a habit she’d had on the phone since she was little.

“Hi! Hang on, let me get your mother. Bev! It’s Bonnie on the phone! She’s going to the one in the bedroom, hon, hold on.”

The phone clicked and then her mother’s bright voice spoke. “Hey there! How are you?”

“Hi Mom. I’m good – just wanted to call … say hi.”

“Well, now, you don’t sound so good; I can hear it in your voice. What’s wrong? You’re not having trouble with your job, I hope? That what’s-his-name, Bedford? He’s not hitting on you, is he?”

She brushed her hair behind her shoulder and settled in. “No, no, Mom – everything’s, uh … everything’s fine. I don’t mean to sound down or anything. I just felt like talking a little… I miss you both. So how are things there? How’s your back, Dad?”

“Ah, it went out on me while I was gardening last week. Your mother told me not to do that – ”

“I told him not to do that.”

“– but I went to see Dr. Winters, and he got a good adjustment on it. Oh, by the way, I saw Jessica down at the pharmacy, and she told me to remind you about the five year reunion.”

“Oh – oh yeah. Yeah, I got the letter.” Feeling awkward, she started toying with her curls.

Her mother’s voice beamed in a sing-song through the phone, “I bet Jason Flemming’ll be there!”

“Mom…” Just the thought of Jason made her cringe after every amazing thing she and Victor had done.

“I know, I know, he’s not your ‘type’, but Bonnie, for the life of me … I’d like to see some grandbabies someday, you know.”

Thoughts of Victor’s gorgeous body pushed away her old annoyance with that line. “I’ll do my best, Mom. Who knows, maybe I’ve already met the right guy and I just don’t realize it yet.”

Her father swooped in with a welcome subject change. “Mrs. Robins misses you at the flower shop, did I already tell you that?”

“No, Dad. She does?”

“Said nobody could do arrangements like you. We miss you too, honey. Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just miss both of you and I wanted to say – wanted to say hi. I’ve gotta go, okay?”

“Okay, sweetie,” her Mom said. “We love you!”

“I love you too, Mom. I love both of you… I’ll try and come home soon, okay? Bye.”

After she hung up and set the phone on the ledger, she put her feet on the edge of the coffee table and leaned forward with her arms wrapped around her thighs. Her hair fell back over one shoulder again as she sat, trying not to feel the emptiness and fear.

 _This mess isn’t a game; those men really want to kill me. I don’t want them to hurt Victor again..._ She tried to think about home. Her parents, Jessica, and Mrs. Robins might be the only people she would miss if she could go away with Victor. _What would they say if I asked him to go there with me, to meet them? Would he do that? What would they think if they knew I killed one of those men? Self-defense, but… Victor’s job is no game, either – how does a girl date a hired assassin? I don’t even know if he … cares – beyond sex._

Bonnie thought about everything he’d said, everything they had done. Her body was still a little sore but it also tingled at the memories.

_He was a different person between the brownstone apartment and this … house. Telling me it’s okay to be the way I am and sharing that with me, I never knew I’d find a man like that. He’s no small-town ‘boy next door’ that’s for sure, and I don’t know anything about mutants except that they get discriminated against a lot. I guess I just have to find out who he is – if he’ll give me half a chance to do that._

Glancing around at the dim private suite he kept in a brothel, she shivered. She couldn’t imagine what his life was like, but it seemed … lonely.

_Why would he be here enough to have a private room? The way he was in the apartment, as if he expected me to be afraid of him and tried to twist what I said when I called him beautiful – maybe he’s used to being treated badly, or called a freak? Is that why he has to come to a place like this? He sounded … surprised … when I suggested we go away together – like maybe he isn’t used to having anyone special. Just like me…_

Men always wanted her, but after trying twice and hearing the same dismissive crap from both of them, she had started to believe they were right and stopped trying. There had been a time when she’d dreamed of many things, but her big plan to move to New York hadn’t been anything like she expected.

_Small-town Jason Flemming or Big Apple Mark Bedford, I was the freak – until Victor came along…_

The suite was quiet except for the crackle of the fire near her. She missed his voice … and she missed feeling safe in his arms.

“Victor … come back. None of this makes sense without you here with me…”

*****************************************************************

Victor left the piled corpses of two units of undead soldiers in the blackened lobby and began to hunt the rest through the dimly lit halls of the complex. His axes barely looked messy, but not one of those men had gotten up again.

 _Somewhere in this hive is a queen bee zombie, somebody with more’n orders an’ braggin’ skills in ‘is head._ Going deeper into the maze of hallways, he sniffed again and finally caught the scent of a lone hunter like himself. _Maybe I can get this one t’ take me t’ ‘is leader? Might be worth throwin’ tha fight t’ take out queenie._ Holding both axes up, he called, “Awright – come on out.”

A shape leapt out of the dark and kicked him in the throat, knocking him back a few feet. Growling, he dodged the next kick, but missed in his attempt to cut the leg with an axe. He twisted to bring the other weapon up and his newest enemy chopped the axe head from the wooden handle like an undead Bruce Lee, punching him in the teeth at the same time and whipping his head back.

The attack that followed was a blur. The heel of a hand smashed into his chin, while a kick to the gut made him double over and drop the remaining axe. He gathered himself to jump and caught a boot in his crotch. Snarling when he hit the floor, he was shocked when he was lifted in a wrestling move and another Bruce Lee blow kneed him in the side of his neck. It hit a cluster of nerves and he shouted out in pain.

By the time he fell into a room off of the hallway and crashed into some sort of cart, his enemy moved to haul him up with an arm trying to crush his throat. The move was half special ops and half martial arts. The free hand grasped his wrist and clamped down on a pressure point before Victor could use his claws. Growling and seething, he was held still.

At his ear, the man spoke, barely out of breath. “The rest of these geezers thought they had it made – muscle memory and residual instincts, figured that was all they’d need. Picked their cute little Russian names for their new Spetsnaz bodies. Cowboys and Indians! Not me, my friend.”

The body behind him, almost as tall, but not as heavy, shifted his hold and lightened his grip. The moment Victor tried to use that, his weight was used against him again and the enemy pulled and twisted, bringing him down onto his belly and forearms. One arm shoved into his upper back, the strong body pinning him down.

“All my life, I studied. Wound down from the lab every day at the dojo – then took it into the field. I was carving up dogs like you before Khrushchev ever banged his shoe on the table.”

His other arm moved and Victor growled as he heard one of those heavy knives ring out of its sheath. It was lifted over the back of his neck.

Behind them, another scent entered the torn up room – a man with a pistol. “Let’s not be hasty. Drag him inside, would you?”

Victor’s first good look at his opponent was when he was dragged up and held by the throat in front of him. The fingers of the big hand were digging into other pressure points under his heavy jaw. He knew his claws wouldn’t cut the creature. Ears pinned and snarling through clenched teeth, he gripped the wrist.

“Why?” the soldier answered the man with the gun. “Why not kill him?”

“Because he killed some of us, and he’s still alive. That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Victor’s roar was cut off when the hand was traded out for another brutal choke hold. He couldn’t breathe. Both hands gripped the forearm against his throat and tried to pull, but he couldn’t get a grip and the flesh wouldn’t cut under his claws. Flashes popped in his head as he fought to breathe. As an encroaching blackness began to take over his vision, he tried to stab his claws in.

The man with the gun wore a suit with a long lab coat and didn’t look like military as all the others had. His hair wasn’t as short and the fancy goatee was carefully trimmed. _Gotta be tha boss – hiya, Queenie,_ he thought. He tried and failed to growl as the man continued to argue.

“Imagine what we could learn from this chap.”

The voice at his ear burst into the growing darkness. “Good point. Where do you want him?”

He was released and fell hard on his face, gasping for breath as he fought passing out.

“Um … nail him to the wall.”

~ ~ ~

The first thing Victor noticed when sharp pain helped him shake off the dark, was that he’d been tacked to the wall with surgical scalpels. Like most of Catholicism before them, they’d gotten the crucifixion bit all wrong – the shiny tools holding his arms out were piercing his hands, not hammered through his Adamantium-coated wrist bones. That suited him just fine.

Crouching on the balls of his booted feet with one hand on the seat of a chair was his assailant. He wore a black tank shirt, shaggy short hair, and the uniform pants and boots of the others. He was holding one of Victor’s axes, and had probably used its hammer end to attach him to the wall. Lab Coat still held his little pistol and stood in front of him looking menacing.

 _It’s cute, really._ Casually setting one boot sole up on the wall behind him, Victor smirked. “So … I think I got this pieced t’gether now.”

Lab Coat looked smug. “Oh?”

“Ya rat turds are a bunch o’ scientists – old farts – an’ ya figured out how t’ put yer brains in young, strong, tough bodies. ‘Piotr’. ‘Aleksander’. Ya got yer hands on some Russian Special Forces troops, an’ ya cored ‘em. Did this t’ ‘em. Made yerselves int’ yer very own Frankenstein’s monsters.”

Sneering, Lab Coat stepped closer and got in his face. “And I was told your intellect was limited.”

Victor ignored the insult and smiled, continuing as if he hadn’t been interrupted at all. _Smart fuckers hate that._ “It makes sense – design yer own product, control tha distribution, answer t’ nobody. Be yer own enforcers, cut out tha middle-man. An’ runnin’ ‘round in those skins – that’s just gotta be some big fun, don’t it? Make ya feel like stud-bulls again? How long’s it been since ya could get it up, Doc?”

Frowning, he turned his back on Victor. “You know, Mr. Creed, I had intended to study you. Vivisect you. Record every bit of data concerning this ‘healing factor’ of yours…”

 _Been there, done that._ “An’ this virus yer other boy told me ‘bout – tha one Bonnie’s ‘sposed t’ be carryin’. Ya do gotta antidote fer it, don’t ya? Yer not that stupid.”

Lab Coat set the pistol down and picked up a canister. He advanced and gripped Victor’s chin, holding the can with the little nozzle close to his nose. “…But instead, I think I’ll just give you a dose of this nerve gas. It’s lethal inside of three seconds. I don’t think you can quite compensate for that.”

“In fact,” Victor continued, blowing the threat off, “I bet ya tha antidote is in this lab with us. Maybe even in that locker over there.” _Both o’ ‘em glanced at it, lookin’ spooked. Yep._

“So, you don’t even listen, while I tell you how I’m going to kill you?”

“Lease some space in a nice legitimate buildin’ under a dummy company’s name … quite tha setup. I don’t really need t’ listen, Doc.” Letting a smile show off sharp teeth, Victor pinned him with a predatory stare. “Why do ya think no outside alarms tripped when I blew tha first charge? I was in tha buildin’ fer half an hour before I knocked on yer door.”

He moved the ring finger and thumb of his hand and touched the gold ring with an Adamantium claw. A metallic ‘tik’ noise was all the warning they got before the lab exploded in another fireball through its back wall. In the distance, all of his randomly placed charges blew other parts of the building to bits.

The undead humans turned and dropped, protecting their heads. Victor yanked the holes in his hands off of the scalpel handles, grabbed the burning locker, and bolted out of the lab with it.

*****************************************************************

Cyril helped Kalashnikov to his feet as the man coughed in the aftermath. The lab was engulfed by smoke and still burning. The clean room had been utterly destroyed and the wall behind it was nothing but a jagged hole full of smoke. It would have to be abandoned and the project moved.

Kalashnikov sank onto the nearest bench in the hall outside of the lab, leaning on one forearm as he wheezed and continued to cough.

“Damn it. Damn it! Where is he? Where’d he go?” Cyril looked around them, angry and ready to fight.

Staring back at the burning lab, Kalashnikov muttered, “It doesn’t matter. We’ve got the girl.”

“Someone called it in?”

“Just before, yes.”

“He took the locker with the antidote. The research, records, and virus samples – it’s all destroyed!” Cyril cursed. “You told them to blow the place up when she was found. She’s our last sample of the virus, and he’s bringing her the damn antidote… We’ll have to start from scratch now.”

“We won’t, and that dumb animal is in for a surprise or two. Go back in there and get my radio. It seems we’ll need to play one more game of Cowboys and Indians after all.”

*****************************************************************

Driven downstairs by the quiet, Bonnie sat on a red armchair in a comfortable sitting room. Her head was starting to pound. She tried to massage her temple. Ruth had joined her and brought her another mug of coffee. There were windows everywhere, but she was tired of looking out of windows.

“You okay, sweetie?”

“Yeah, just a little headache – I’ll be fine.”

*****************************************************************

The trooper perched in a large tree and stared through the window into the house where two women were talking. The blonde was Hale, as the phone tappers had promised. He had reported to Kalashnikov when they reached the house, and now that they had proof, it was time to move his men into action and carry out orders. He picked up his radio.

“Target acquired. Begin setting the charges.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For my fellow history buffs, I’ll present a bit of trivia on Cyril’s boasts in this chapter. If you don’t care about such details, feel free to skip the following paragraph:
> 
> Khrushchev was a Russian politician who led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War (he was replaced in 1964). His alleged shoe-banging incident, as cited by Wikipedia, occurred during the 902nd Plenary Meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 1960. Some sources tell of Khrushchev pounding his shoe on his delegate-desk over a speech by delegate Sumulong from the Phillippines on October 12th. Other sources say it was Britain’s Prime Minister Macmillian who set him off at the end of September. Sumulong basically accused the Soviet Union of “swallowing up” the rights of “the peoples of Eastern Europe and elsewhere”. Khrushchev rushed to the rostrum and denounced Sumulong as “a stooge” for the USA. Boland, the Irish delegate and Assembly President, sent Khrushchev back to his seat and allowed Sumulong to continue if he didn’t wander off-topic. Allegedly, Khrushchev pounded his fists, and then his shoe, on his desk as Sumulong continued to speak. Some accounts say this started a verbal row among members of the Eastern Bloc and Boland declared the meeting adjourned and slammed his gavel down hard enough to break it and sent the head of it flying.
> 
> Cyril was probably not a soldier in WWII, since he mentioned working in a lab and spending “his life” after work learning martial arts prior to the 1960 shoe-banging incident. He could have operated in the Cold War field in some hit man manner in the late 1950s at least, honing the skills he’d picked up in the dojo and the field and eventually using them to fight and technically beat Sabretooth. Personally, I think Sabey more or less was pulling his punches, so to speak, in a classic “trying to get captured to learn more info” manner. He’d already killed some of these zombie guys, and he regularly fights and often beats Wolverine, so Cyril simply isn’t the guy to beat him under normal circumstances.
> 
> As for the non-PC “Cowboys and Indians” references I retained from the comics, these are bad guys who don’t care about being politically correct. Thanks for reading, and if you slogged through my history trivia, extra thanks for that. - AnonGrimm (@MET_Fic)


	4. Keep You Safe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a lot of time jumping back and forth in this chapter in order to get the many viewpoints and events shown to mix in real time (while much of it happens concurrently). I hope I have included enough narrative bookmarks that it is clear to everyone what is happening when, where, and to whom. – AnonGrimm (@MET_Fic)

Bleeding now I’m  
Crying out I’m  
Falling down and I’m  
Feeling nothing like  
Laughing now I’m  
Stopping now I’m  
Reaching out and I’m  
Feeling nothing

Yeah, you have created a rift within me  
Now there have been several complications  
That have left me feeling nothing  
I might say, you were wrong to take it from me  
Left me feeling nothing

Crawling now I’m  
Beaten down I’m  
Tortured now and I’m  
Feeling nothing like  
Hunting now I’m  
Stalking now I’m  
Reaching out and I’m  
Killing nothing

I can feel you ripping and tearing  
Feeding and growing inside of me  
I want this, more than you know  
I need this, give it back to me

~ Numb (Disturbed)

*****************************************************************

Leaping down from the tree and moving into the garden, the trooper took the C-4 out of his belt pouch. Snorting when he saw a pottery gnome, he headed right for it as he formed the clay-like explosive into a disc. The silly statue wouldn’t come off the ground without a fight, so he dropped to his knees to stick the explosive to its belt buckle. Carefully inserting the detonator with timer into it, he set it for twenty seconds.

The radio went off again when he patted the side of the red pointy hat, so he paused to answer the boss before starting the clock. “Sir?”

“New orders. Creed has stolen the antidote and I want it back. Abort the bombing attack. The antidote is in a small metal vial, easily concealed. Recover it, kill both Creed and the girl, and then meet us at the airfield. It’s time to take our business elsewhere.”

“Roger that, sir. Out.” Not in the mood to abort the bombing, he started the timer. A rumbling noise and vibration through the ground came up fast. “Whuh –?” He got one boot under him and turned his head to look into the woods at his shoulder.

Bursting from the trees in a shower of leaves and twigs, a huge motorcycle struck him as its front wheel lifted. He fell back and screamed as the rear wheel ran him over. The weight of it, and of Creed riding it, made it heavy enough to break his bones.

Creed set the motorcycle on its kickstand and strode over, yanked the gnome out of the ground, grabbed his military jacket in the other hand, and hauled him off to the street.

He tried to struggle, tried to grab Creed’s boot or the tire of a car as he was dragged past it. The mutant crouched down, set the statue aside, and placed his head on a forearm. Open-palmed, a hand smashed down, breaking his neck. He and the statue were picked up again. He couldn’t feel the twisted arm he was pulled by as he watched his broken legs skitter on the old gravelly asphalt.

Creed dropped him in the center of the narrow street and placed the gnome on its side over his outstretched broken arm. Grabbing a handful of jacket again, his enemy lifted his upper body and set his head on the gnome statue like a pillow.

“No! No, please, don’t –!”

*****************************************************************

Bonnie and Ruth jumped when an explosion sounded outside, rattling the windows in the sitting room.

“I think we need to move,” the older woman said, frowning at the large windows.

“Do you think Victor’s all right, Ruth?”

Ruth screamed when a soldier jumped through the window. “Bonnie, look out!”

*****************************************************************

The orders from Kalashnikov had been on their squad’s channel, but his intrepid firebug leader hadn’t been able to resist readying the weapon that Creed had used to kill him.

Kolya didn’t flinch when the bomb made a crater in his comrade’s corpse. Perched in another tree, he assumed command and called out his first order to whatever was left of them. “Occupy Creed out here. I’ll kill the girl inside. Be on the lookout for a small metal vial he stole – the big boss says it’s the antidote.”

Another trooper’s voice came over the radio and acknowledged, “Roger.” It was the only voice that answered.

_Two of us left? Won’t matter – Fedor knows what he’s doing and Creed and his trollop are going to be just as dead._

Gripping his automatic rifle, Kolya crouched and jumped – shattering the glass as he landed in the room where Hale and the older woman were. When he landed, they started to scatter. He fired at both of them, filling the room full of holes.

“You’re just making it worse, bitch!”

*****************************************************************

Victor was rushing down a back hallway behind the lab to find a place where he could dump the contents of the cabinet when something inside it exploded and knocked him across the hallway. His raincoat, shirt, and bandana caught fire and the stink of the explosive was all too familiar.

 _Who tha fuck keeps C-4 in a lab?_ His impact had put a hole in the wall and knocked his hair out of the bun.

Stripping off the flaming clothing and cutting away a scorched lock of hair, he jumped to his feet. Claws took the twisted cabinet apart. Stomping on the fire through a sea of papers, he spotted a single metal vial and snapped it up. The label on it was scorched, but it was all he had.

It was still raining when he reached the motorcycle. He wanted to stay and kill them all, but the vial was Bonnie’s last chance. He growled when he saw a slick liquid leaking from the cap. Opening one of the saddlebags, he found a ragged black bandana and wrapped the vial into it before stuffing it into a front pocket of his jeans. Growling at the rain, he snagged a t-shirt from the saddlebag and threw it over his head.

Letting his hair get wet with the rest of him, Victor drove the Harley like a madman to reach the girl in time.

~ ~ ~

Finding more zombies playing soldiers on his property didn’t improve his night, but running their squad leader over with the motorcycle and then blowing him into pothole filler helped.

He had started running to reach the backstairs when he felt something burning his hip and thigh.

~ ~ ~

Bonnie screamed inside the house as glass shattered. Victor growled and raced up to find her as a soldier shouted, his automatic rifle firing at the women inside. A second asshole was harrying his footsteps, but he couldn’t scent any others.

Victor ran through the house. “Bonnie! Where are ya?”

Bullets peppered around him, none of them fast enough to hit. He headed for the main staircase, following the scent of her fear and the undead stench of her pursuer.

The grinning zombie behind him shouted out, “You should’ve just stayed in bed today, Creed, ‘cause I’m about to put you in a whole new world of hurt!”

Swallowed up by the darkness upstairs, Victor listened to him climbing up. With a hiss, he whispered, “Oh yeah?”

Bonnie had run into the bathroom in his suite, and Ruth had never gotten up the stairs. The tips of his ears twitched when he heard water rushing not far away – the tub was being filled.

*****************************************************************

Bonnie waited, breathless but ready to fight. Beside her, the tub was filling fast. Two soldiers were moving near the suite door, but only one entered.

“Just like a woman … run and hide in the bathroom.”

She heard the second one laugh, but then he moved farther away. _Okay, one is better._

Gripping the can of hairspray she’d borrowed and Victor’s cigarette lighter, she managed not to scream when the soldier entered the bathroom and spotted her. She attacked immediately with the make-shift flamethrower and set him on fire. His scream helped ramp her up as she grabbed a towel and twisted it like a rope. She dropped it over his head, wound it around his neck, and used it to swing him off balance beside the tub. He screamed again as he fell into the water, his hideous weapon clattering on the tiled floor.

She didn’t allow herself to stop and think. They were monsters; they were trying to kill her, to kill Victor and Ruth. She picked up the hairdryer and its long cord and turned it on, holding it over the soldier.

Hands up to ward off her attack, he yelled, “You bitch! I’ll –”

Bonnie tossed it in on him and watched as it electrocuted him. The noise and the cries he made were awful and her heart was nearly pounding out of her chest, but she watched until he was dead. Leaning back a bit to get the full view of the mess she’d made of him, she let a little smile of triumph creep onto her face.

Something crashed through the tiled wall around the tub, and she jumped back to stand in the doorway. She was shocked to see the head of the other soldier sticking through the wall.

“Aaow! Geez, man, please, I already told you what you – hey – hey, what the hell’re you –? Don’t stick that up my –! Shit, that hurts! Oh, no – No, no, don’t, don’t –” His scream so close was horrid, but the machine gun going off behind him was worse. In moments, he was dead, his head hanging down over the electrocuted one in the tub.

Bonnie stepped outside of the bathroom and saw Victor dropping the machine gun as he entered the suite.

“Victor…” She rushed to him and they embraced. He kissed her with the same desperation she felt as she held his face gently in her hands. When he broke the kiss, they touched foreheads and held each other close. “I didn’t know if … if I’d see you again…”

“Hush, now. Hush,” he soothed her. “I told ya, Bonnie; I’ll keep ya with me. I’ll keep ya safe.”

She moved her hands to touch his heavily muscled shoulders and looked up into his strange and beautiful amber eyes, seeing the black cat’s eye pupils start to widen. “Promise?” she whispered.

His gruff voice smoothed into a soft raspy whisper as he answered, “I promise.”

Bonnie let out a sigh of relief. He turned her in his arms, rested his chin on her shoulder and wrapped his arms around her waist. She leaned her head back against his, feeling his long and loose wet hair as it fell around his shoulders. His clothes were wet, too, but nothing mattered now – she was safe in his arms.

*****************************************************************

Victor stepped out of the suite and found Ruth waiting in the hall. He left the door open behind him. “Ya will see t’ ‘er, Ruth?”

“Of course, Victor,” she answered, her tone soft and quiet. She followed him downstairs and stood in the formal diningroom to watch him leave.

He’d pulled on a black leather jacket, but hadn’t bothered to change clothes. It was still raining and he was already soaked. The rain hit him hard when he stepped outside at the backstairs.

~ ~ ~

The private airfield outside of East Irvington in upstate New York was quiet and mostly empty. Victor had tortured the location out of a man before bashing his head through a wall and shoving the nose of a machine gun up his ass.

A long hanger with many broken windows sported a few bright spotlights, but the building itself was dark. Out on the wide apron in front of it, a small tourist plane and a black helicopter were parked as the rain poured down.

The two dead men he was going to kill stepped out of the other end of the hanger and began to walk to the helicopter. They both carried cases and wore the same military gear as the others, but these were different – they were the ones from the lab, the scientists who had developed their own pet plague. When they began to speak, he could hear every word.

“I cannot believe how fast all this has gone to hell,” complained the Kung Fu-happy one. “When did Creed first show up, five hours ago?”

“I’m looking at it as a blessing, Cyril,” Doc Lab Coat replied.

Cyril frowned at him.

“I mean, yes,” he answered the sour look, “all of our bacteriological research was destroyed in the lab, and we’re set back for about six months … but I still have a photographic memory. We’ll recover.”

Victor lifted his sniper rifle to his shoulder and brought Lab Coat’s well-groomed and smiling face into sharp and close focus. He watched the man’s eyes as he spoke.

“And this time I think we’ll set up in Hawaii. Did you know native Hawaiian doesn’t have a generic word for ‘weather’? You know why it doesn’t? Because the weather there is always so fantastic, nobody feels the need to talk about it.” His smile stretched as the fantasy in his head amused him. “Some hula girls and a nice big margarita and all of this will be forgott – unnh!”

The report of the rifle echoed for effect as Victor’s finger released the trigger. The silencer had been tucked in his jacket pocket. He grinned as he watched the fool pitch forward, drop his case, and fall to the ground from the shot to his head. Moving fast through the hanger, he set up his next ambush – a far more personal one.

“Kalashnikov!” Cyril yelled. He whirled and spotted Victor as he stepped out of the dark doorway of the hanger they had emerged from before.

Leaning against the door jam as he held the rifle, smoke still billowing from its barrel, Victor tucked one hand in his jeans pocket and assumed an insultingly casual pose. “Coulda shot ya, too. Didn’t want t’. Know why?”

“No.” Cyril moved fast, drawing and firing an M-26 taser at him.

Victor dropped the rifle, caught the conductive wires and yanked them, jerking the gun from the man’s hand. “Cuz I’m goin’ t’ take ya apart – by hand.”

His enemy ran forward and tried another Bruce Lee kick to Victor’s outstretched arm. Victor moved in faster than Cyril could see, twisted his body, and struck him in the throat with an elbow. As he began to fall, Victor got a knee up and slammed it into the shoulder, throwing the man hard into the ground on his ass.

Victor dropped with him grabbing one arm under his. When he hit on his back behind the man, he gripped his own wrist with his other hand and snapped the elbow as he forced it back against his side.

The loud crack of bone and the agonized scream were satisfying, but Cyril fought to get away and rose before Victor could roll and attack again.

“Son of a bitch!”

Holding his injury, the hand hanging backward, he didn’t try any more martial arts moves. To Victor’s surprise, he bolted and began to run up a flight of stairs inside the hanger, heading for the roof. Even more surprising, mister tough guy started babbling almost childish threats at the top of his lungs as he went.

“Drop you on your head! Take you up, splatter out your brains! I will! I will! Just wait and see if I don’t –”

Victor raced after him, growling. Up on the roof, he slammed into him against a metal railing. A boot struck his and the man used Victor’s weight and forward motion against him again, redirecting his powerful lunge and swinging him down to his back.

Cyril was on him in an instant, laughing. “Here’s a thumb in your eye!”

Victor roared in pain but ignored the injury; the moment the man moved his hand to try hurting him again, the eye began to heal. “So ya … brought tha taser … thought that would stop me…?”

Intent on trying to choke him, Cyril didn’t notice when he groped at his jacket pocket and pulled out a huge syringe. Using a thumb, Victor flicked the cap off of the huge10 gauge needle.

“Well … I brought somethin’ fer ya, too.”

“Huh?” Cyril exclaimed as Victor pushed up fast, dislodging his chokehold.

“Was gonna use garden variety sulfuric acid…”

As he threw him over onto his back instead, Victor stabbed the needle up Cyril’s nose and slammed the plunger down. Rolling away from him, Victor sat up with one hand on his thigh and watched his handiwork as Cyril writhed and gurgled.

“But when I saw that shipment of acetic anhydride in the warehouse, well … I figured, why do things halfway?”

The man convulsed until the hellish chemical began to bubble and pour back out of his nose. Smoke rose from the head when the body went still.

Distracted by the sound of helicopter blades beginning to rotate and spin, Victor jumped up onto his feet and looked across the roof. The black helicopter was taking off, with scientist Kalashnikov, the brains of it all, at the controls.

Glaring at it, his eyes narrowed to amber slits in the pouring rain. “No.” Growling, he started to run. “Not a chance.” He raced to the other end of the roof and launched himself off of it, smashing through the glass windows of the helicopter into the cockpit.

“Mother of God!” Kalashnikov screamed.

The helicopter caught fire and went into a smoking spin before crashing to the ground with the tail of it almost broken in half. The rotors chewed up the concrete apron before they stopped, and then the smashed wreck slowly settled with a grinding squeal as fire consumed it.

They’d been thrown from the helicopter as it went down, but Victor recovered faster. Targeting Kalashnikov as he crawled on his belly away from the flaming pieces of his escape transport, Victor jumped and landed on either side of the scientist’s legs. His hand grabbed the back of the skull and slammed the man’s face into the concrete. One of his claws found the divot his bullet had made in the man’s head.

Growling, Victor ground his face down harder, scratching it up. “Ya just keep still fer a bit.”

Kalashnikov tried to speak and Victor allowed him to turn his head as he began to mumble, “At least ... tell me ... did you do it? Did you stop the plague? Did you ... save your girlfriend?”

Victor lifted his head and stared off into the night. The images, their voices, her scent … took him back where he didn’t want to go.

~ ~ ~

He had started running to reach the backstairs when he felt something burning his hip and thigh. Snatching at the black bandana he’d wrapped the metal vial in, he yanked it out of his jeans pocket. Whatever had been in it was reacting to the heat it had been subjected to when the cabinet exploded.

Black and bubbling, it burned through the stopper cap as he watched. It dissolved the bandana and burned his fingers before he dropped it on the concrete curb. As the dark sludge cut a hole in the curb, his burns healed – but his hope was gone. He had frozen, staring at it, until he heard Bonnie scream.

He had run to her and they had killed the last two soldiers together. Smart, resourceful, thinking fast on her feet in the face of an undead man with an ugly weapon – she had made a plan and killed him with it. She was magnificent – but he still had a promise to keep.

Victor let his claws prick into Kalashnikov’s scalp, but the points barely scratched him. He drew in a ragged breath and heard again the last words they’d spoken to each other.

 _I’ll keep ya with me,_ he told Bonnie as they had embraced. _I’ll keep ya safe._

 _Promise?_ she asked.

 _I promise,_ he told her. He had meant it, just as much as the first time. He had wanted to protect her from fear, from pain. In the end, there had been only one way to do it.

Gently, he had turned her to put her back against his chest. For a few breaths, drunk on her scent, he had held her close, arms circled around her waist. He could hear the blood pounding in her temples, racing through her veins. Her heartrate was accelerating. She drew in a breath as he moved his hands. When she let the breath out in a contented sigh, he snapped her neck.

She sagged against him, dead in seconds.

He caught and held her, a broken whine escaping from clenched teeth.

Outside the door, he heard movement and growled – but the footsteps on the stairs and coming down the hall were too light. _Ruth._

The soldier he’d tortured had told him about the private airfield and the plan to meet there and escape. His growl deepened. He couldn’t allow that – they had to pay.

Victor picked Bonnie up in his arms and laid her down carefully on the couch. One hand stroked her golden curls … and a claw cut one of them away. He caught it before it fell to the couch. Barely able to process why, he cut another one and rose.

When he went to open the door and stepped out, the golden curling hair had been contained – in a clear crystal box on the mantel.

He shut the door softly. “Ya will see t’ ‘er Ruth?”

“Of course Victor.”

The rain hit him hard when he stepped outside at the backstairs. He had half-stumbled down them to get to the concrete walkway where no one would see. Her voice pursued him, even after he struck himself in the head to silence it.

_This, what we did tonight – this was real. Wasn’t it?_

A savage hatred burned in his veins and drove him down to his knees. One hand fell to the dark burn over a jeans pocket.

 _I had it, I brought it t’ save ‘er, but tha fire ruined it – a fire I set. She wanted t’ go away … with me…_ He was covered with her scent, could still feel how she had touched him… Confusion twined with the hate, hating himself so intensely that it was hard to breathe.

In the brownstone, she had held her hand out to him, entreated him to believe her.

_I’m telling the truth … you know that, don’t you?_

His hands held his skull, trying to crush it to stop the voice. Hot hate and cold pain filled him. Back arching, he had roared … but he had little memory of how he had struggled up, how he had gotten … here.

“No ... I didn’t save ‘er,” Sabretooth answered Kalashnikov. He snarled and pushed down harder, grinding the side of his face into the cracking concrete. “Tha antidote was destroyed in tha lab explosion.” His prey shuddered and slumped, close to passing out. “Don’t get too comfortable, Doc; we’re goin’ on a trip.”

~ ~ ~

Victor watched the Atlantic swallow the horizon as the jet swooped lower over the waves. When he stood, he smoothed the jacket of his gray suit and straightened the white silk tie. His long hair was wound tight in a bun at the nape of his neck again. Winding it up and trying to banish the memory – the feel – of delicate fingers … had been almost more than he could do and still stick to his plan.

He knew when his guest was beginning to wake and moved through the cabin to reach his chair. The man moaned, struggling. His wrists were bound behind his back.

“Good mornin’,” Victor greeted him. He watched as the man looked down and saw why he couldn’t move his legs – they were buried halfway up the calf in a black plastic tub full of solid concrete. Listening to it harden as he cleaned up and changed into the suit had helped him stay focused and calm.

Kalashnikov’s fear stench burst around him. “Oh my God … oh my God…” Whipping his head to the side to stare up at Victor, he began to beg in a growing desperate panic. “Creed, don’t kill me! You can’t kill me! I can – I can give you details! How we did it, where all the money is, everything! I know it all!”

Victor moved to sit in the chair across from him and leaned his forearms on his thighs. His fingers steepled as he stared at them, head down, listening.

“Creed, I can cut you in on the deal! We’ve made billions already! Just – just let me live! I can set it all up again, it’s a gold mine, just … please, I’m begging you… I’m begging you … please don’t kill me…”

Without looking up from his hands, he spoke in a calm, low voice. “Kalashnikov, there is exactly one reason I mighta ever had t’ not kill ya.” Taking a breath, he let it out slow. “An’ that reason died in my arms ‘bout four hours ago.” He lifted his head, reached for his sunglasses on the next seat beside him, and put them on. “Had t’ snap ‘er neck, so she wouldn’t die in fear an’ pain. Last thing I’m gonna do is let ya set up shop again an’ live t’ enjoy any damn thing. Also, want ya t’ know – got one o’ yer boys t’ talk already an’ he had a lot t’ say, includin’ tha name o’ yer offshore bank. I happen t’ know tha owner – hell, we practically share a hairbrush. Now ain’t that a kick.” He rose smoothly to his feet. “Time t’ go.”

From under the seat, behind the tub, he hauled out a thick chain and wrapped it tight around Kalashnikov’s body several times, looping it through and around his bound arms as well.

He ignored the begging and curses as he went to open the clamshell door with its built-in airstairs. The wind played havoc with his hair but the pilot had had plenty of practice with this maneuver and kept the jet at a perfect speed and low altitude over the roiling waves.

Pulling the scientist’s body over one shoulder, he picked up the tub of cement as if it weighed nothing. He set it down on the last step, paid out the end of the chain and held it in one hand. With adept precision, the pilot began to roll the jet slightly, until the chain snapped taut and only it and the curved lip of the last stair kept the man from falling. Legs braced in the open doorway, Victor’s other hand held onto the metal frame, careful not to crush it.

“Just so ya know, tha chemical cocktail I poured down yer throat while ya were unconscious will ignite as soon as salt water touches it. Burn ya out from tha inside. I figure ya got ‘bout five minutes, tops.”

“No … no…”

The hand holding the chain shifted, claws popping to slice the thick steel links like paper. “Rot in hell.”

Kalashnikov screamed all the way down until his body plunged into the waves, driven in by the weight of the cement. When he disappeared, Victor brought the door back up and sealed it as the jet leveled out.

He returned to his seat, leaving the sunglasses on in the bright glare through the window. One palm smoothed his windblown hair.

“Mr. Creed?” Zane called. “Are we still returning to the airfield?”

“Yeah.” He lifted his hand, elbow on the arm of the chair. Staring at the claws that had cut the chain, he swallowed down all the rest and tried to lock it away deep. “Been a long night – long night. It’s time I got back t’ work.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cyril comments that Creed may have shown up five hours ago. I personally think it was longer than that, and earlier in the comic when Victor first stole Bonnie from them, they said they had sixteen hours until the plague Bonnie carried would be released.
> 
> The antidote’s vial was described but never shown, and in the comics Victor just says it was destroyed in the lab fire. I’ve altered that a little so that it might make a bit more sense (I hope). I felt that it was more intense for Victor to rush back thinking he had a cure for Bonnie, only to discover at the last minute that the fire had destroyed it. There are all sorts of chemicals and such that react to extreme heat, but I didn’t see the point in trying to invent what the antidote was (or the science behind the engineered plague bioweapon, for that matter).
> 
> The idea that Victor, so often motivated by greed, would just willingly pass up taking the billions these men made seemed odd to me. Obviously, he was too enraged by them to take Kalashnikov up on his final offer. Basically, I just wanted Victor to have that money. Having invented a powerful international bank that Victor helped build with his partner Obinata, and the fact that they often cater to criminal clients, made my embellishment at the end of this chapter easy – Obinata can just move Kalashnikov’s money over to his and Victor’s accounts. Victor’s joke about he and Obinata “sharing a hair brush” is a line I altered and borrowed from James Bond in "Live and Let Die", in reference to his friendship with Quarrel Jr. - AnonGrimm (@MET_Fic)


	5. Ghosts and Monsters

Here’s another cold day  
In that old November way  
Once again it’s begin  
I’m stuck and out astray  
And you came in like a wave  
Through the same paled grin, I gave  
Just breathe  
Just breathe

And the gulp’s from the gut  
I’m flat on the floor  
There’s no use riding waves  
Crashed to the shore  
Disaster paths’ aftermaths  
One splash  
To the ground  
And I’m at best an island  
And you’re an ocean  
You surround  
And you came in like a wave  
Through the same pale grin, I gave  
I can just breathe  
Just breathe  
I can just breathe  
Just breathe  
Just breathe

~ Just Breathe (Don Brownrigg)

*****************************************************************

It made no sense to return with work stacked up at all corners of the other side of the globe, but he didn’t care. They could wait – the marks weren’t going anywhere. He saw no one but Ruth. In his suite, he told her one by one what items he wanted transported.

“Ya know my lawyer, Shaul Yahalom; he’s gonna be here t’morrow t’ pick this stuff up an’ take it with ‘im. All I need ya t’ do is pack it up, nice an’ secure – use gloves, no bare hands touch this stuff, an’ only ya work on it.”

“I understand.”

Without looking at her, he moved to the mantel. “Anybody can help with tha boxes. That ledger on tha couch goes … an’ this…” He paused, staring into it.

Gently, as if it were fragile, though he knew it couldn’t be damaged if it was run over by a car, he picked up the palm-sized crystal box. Inside it was a delicate golden curl of hair. Moving it to the safe in the closet, he placed it on a stack of papers. Drawing in a deep breath, he let it out slow, and then closed and locked the safe.

“Shaul can open that.”

“Of course,” she responded. When he paused, trying not to look lost, Ruth asked, “Anything else?”

The ugly truth they were both avoiding abruptly took up the whole room. Victor closed his eyes. “Where?”

“Here on the grounds. Do you want to see –?”

“No. Just … keep things like they are. Ya handled it like I said, when Obinata called, after?”

“I did, yes – to the letter.”

He ran a hand through his hair, smoothing wayward strands out of his face. “If ya wanted t’ know why…”

“I don’t need to know anything unless you want to tell me.”

He almost did it, but then the moment was over. “After Shaul leaves, seal up this suite. Nobody comes in, not even t’ clean.”

“You hate dust.”

“Next time I’ll call first; if I say I’m comin’ in, fine, dust it. Dunno when I’ll be back.”

“May I say that … I’m sorry…?”

“No.” Without another word, he left and didn’t look back.

~ ~ ~

Victor took Broadway for as long as he could to avoid bigger highways, turning the drive back to his private jet at JFK International Airport into over an hour of torment, alone in the near-dark. Joe Cocker sang about a sandpaper Cadillac as the smooth and armored Cadillac Eldorado Brougham cut through the night like a sleek tawny animal on the hunt.

He was breathing her scent – there was no escaping it. Glancing over at the passenger seat, he could almost imagine her there: a creature of golden curls and soft skin. She’d been wrapped in a purple sheet that had been saturated with the smells of their mating. That sheet would soon be on its way to the Yukon safe house along with his mask collection and the rest – and the precious treasure of her DNA in an indestructible crystal box.

When there were lights, they would flash or glow like passing phantoms in the dark as the huge car drove on.

Victor tried to think about the work, where he’d been, where he had to be next. Joe wailed on, as if he knew he was Victor’s only way to express what he felt.

Somebody’s pouring blood on its back  
Paint that has pierced all the pores in his hide  
Paint that has pierced … all the … pores in his hide…

The memory of the red flood he’d spilled in Denmark warred with emotions he didn’t understand that were clinging to her scent.

_Damn, those people had a lot o’ blood between ‘em – coulda maybe painted my car with it… Two more stops, then I’ll head back t’ tha Yukon, take a break before tha Vancouver job._

When he had to, he switched onto I-95 and worked over to catch I-678 South to the airport. Terrorizing people in the toll booths along the way distracted him for a while, but by the time he reached JFK, he was in a foul mood. It wasn’t improved by the sight of the Gulfstream G450 jet – it was the same one he’d taken to kill Kalashnikov. When he’d told the pilot to change planes after the last job, he’d forgotten to add ‘not that one’ to the order.

His employees jumped into action the moment he parked near the jet. Zane was talking to his driver, but they both came over right away to greet him and wait for orders.

“Take tha Caddy t’ tha brownstone an’ store it, secure an’ outta sight.”

“Yes, sir,” the driver responded.

Victor retrieved his duffel bag himself and carried it to the jet, tossing the car keys to the man. “Get me across tha pond fast, Zane – lost ‘nuff time with this fuckin’ woolgatherin’.”

“You got it, Mr. Creed.”

“When ya get me t’ Vancouver after these jobs are done, ya can take off fer a bit – I’m gonna be on vacay. Take this beast wherever ya wanna go an’ expense it; yer gonna hafta live without me fer ‘bout a month. I need a break.”

“Not a problem – wheels up in about twenty.”

“Make it fifteen an’ I’ll toss in an escort bonus.”

Ignoring the man’s grin and enthusiastic thumb’s up gesture, Victor stomped up onto the jet. He got settled in his chair after yanking off boots and socks, stretched out his legs in the comfortable worn denim, and tried to relax. They had done a good job cleaning it and the gray interior and red leather seats were spotless, but he could still smell undead asshole in the cabin.

Zane came aboard, still grinning. “Ready, Boss?”

Victor looked out his round window and watched the people scurrying to get the rich man in the air. One of his huge security men was out there – the Italian with anger issues and a talent for fake charm.

“Not yet. Ya can keep yer perks, but go out there an’ tell Saturno ‘is name means ‘god o’ tha harvest’ an’ he can live up t’ it by findin’ me a distraction fer tha flight. Anybody that wants a free trip t’ Venice on a private jet, somethin’ he’d wanna fuck is good ‘nuff.”

“We’re still going to Warsaw, right?”

He tossed the pilot a wink. “That’s right.”

The man moved to the back and made a lot of noise unfolding rustling plastic before following his latest order.

When he left, Victor growled and leaned his seat back. _Go kill people fer money, make it messy just fer fun, fer free. Fuck whatever crosses yer path that smells like ya wanna fuck it. Whatever this is, it’ll fade._

The scent that followed Zane up into the jet was a twenty-something female: brunette, decent body, anxious and excited. She was shown to the undead doctor’s seat across the aisle from him and buckled in. Ignoring her initial hellos and babbled gratitude, he caught Saturno’s eye through the window and nodded to his smirk.

When they were over the North Atlantic Ocean, Victor turned to face the woman. _Bonnie’s gone. Ya know ya can’t use what ya kept. Forget ‘er … an’ take what ya got right in front o’ ya._ “Hiya. Ever been t’ Warsaw?”

“Hi… We’re going to Venice, right?”

“If ya like, sure, provided yer a good girl – if yer not, I can have ya buried in Warsaw … or what’s left o’ ya.”

“Wha-what?”

“Turn ‘round, see that dark thing on tha floor at tha back? They stretch one o’ those out just fer girls like ya. ‘Stupid ‘nuff t’ take a ride with a stranger’ is just my type.”

“Please…” she whispered.

“Boss?” Zane called. “You can stretch your legs now, if you want.”

Victor grinned at the woman, breathing in her terror. “Don’t mind if I do.” He got up and unclicked her seatbelt as she finally understood and shrieked.

He picked her up as she kicked, hit, and twisted, and carted her to the back of the jet. Setting her down hard on the thick black tarp in front of the lavatory, he smirked when he stripped off his t-shirt and jeans. She was in some kind of shock, maybe – staring up at him in silence as he brushed his thick long braid to his back to get it out of his way.

She tried to fight when he came at her, but he barely noticed as his claws tore away her dress and underthings. Buried deep inside her in moments, he held her head and made her kiss him.

Fighting to free her mouth, she gasped when he let her and shouted, “You’re a monster! Please stop… Help me!”

Her screaming hurt his ears, so he kissed her again, and then ate her tongue. It felt good to suck the blood from the stump of it as he thrust in, over and over. When he finished, he withdrew and immobilized her under him with claws set over one breast to keep her still. Curling up against her, he tried to sleep.

Waking in a cold sweat little more than an hour later, he sat up panting. It had been a new nightmare and he’d woken at the sound of his large hands breaking Bonnie’s slender neck.

“Shit…” Growling, he turned and sank his fangs into his prey, sucking at the blood.

She survived many other bites and cuts longer than he thought she could, but soon her movements started to slow as she fell deeper into shock. When he pulled free of the last bite, he stared down at the face. It was full of horror and speckled with blood.

 _It’s over, don’t mean nothin’ an’ never did._ He turned the head and it almost looked like she was glaring at him, though he knew her mind was already shutting down. _Fuck ya, bitch. Yer nothin’. None o’ ya skirts mean shit t’ me – just a collection o’ handy holes t’ fuck, just meat, just…_

Memory bloomed, pushed at anger, and tormented him – Bonnie’s sweet scent, her sassy smile, the smell of the tears she’d shed with no fear of him in her, just a heat that could burn him.

 _Dunno why she cried, wasn’t hurt, wasn’t afraid or sad… What was that?_ Her soft smile, her voice when she had asked to go away with him, it all rose and circled in his head like frightened birds. _Stop it, ya stupid fuck! It don’t matter! Ya saved ‘er an’ went t’ stop ‘er probs – sure she was happy ‘bout that. Once it was done, she woulda bailed first chance she got!_

Victor glared down at the prey – soon enough, it would be a corpse. With a hiss, he mounted it again and thrust roughly inside it until he came. As he growled with the pleasure of release, he heard the heart stop.

Getting away from it immediately before nature took its messy course, he leaned against the softly vibrating wall of the jet and tried to slow his breathing. The eyes were clouding but still seemed to stare … with loathing, for the brutal freak who had killed her.

 _Just like Bonnie in that fuckin’ dream…_ “Zane,” he called out, as soon as he could speak without trembling.

“Yeah, Boss?”

“Fly low, we got some refuse t’ dump.”

The pilot, as unaffected as ever, simply answered, “No problem.”

~ ~ ~

Victor got off of the jet in Vancouver and picked up his newest helicopter there. The solitary flight to the Yukon safe house helped to soothe his sour mood. He went through the motions of things that had to be done and barely spoke to the two French Canadian caretakers who lived there. As soon as he could, he retreated to the master suite of the house that had been carved right into the heart of the Selwyn Mountains, and slept.

Warsaw and Athens had been the same, and when he woke again in a cold sweat in his bed in the Yukon, it was all he could do not to tear the place to shreds in a fit of rage.

Bonnie’s death was settling into his subconscious and waking mind alike as firmly as her scent, and the ghostly memory of her voice and touch.

Growling, he sat up in the trashed bed and reached for his phone to call his banker.

“Don’t talk, Obinata, listen: I want somethin’ done an’ I want it done fast. That skirt name o’ Bonnie Hale, talk t’ Ruth fer details. She musta used tha phone in my suite at Ruth’s an’ tha call was traced. I wanna know who she called an’ I wanna know every-fuckin’-thin’ ‘bout ‘em.” He rattled off a trio of addresses. “First one’s a lab, by tha landfill near there. Scorch it t’ tha bedrock. Next is a buildin’ where Hale was when I met ‘er. If anythin’ was left there o’ ‘ers, I want it confiscated an’ stored. Last one is tha apartment she told me she lived at. Research that buildin’. Let’s play payroll cops an’ lawyers, an’ then apply yer acquisition talents. I want tha buildin’, buy tha whole damn thing – seal it up. No access, got it? Use some o’ that undead fucker’s money. Call me back when ya got some intel.”

He wasn’t able to sleep again, and grabbed the ringing phone as he was pacing across the floor.

“What ya got?”

Obinata’s voice spoke fast and Victor listened, nodding when he started to get what he wanted to hear.

“She called her parents, at her childhood home, Creed-san. I can send you their address. They have recently filed a missing person report but they are having trouble with the landlord of the building due to the rent being late and the red tape has stalled them considerably. If you want the building bought and sealed up, we’ll need a good story if they get a missing person investigation off the ground.”

“Make sure it’s our boys doin’ tha investigatin’ an’ it won’t matter. Tha parents got any weaknesses, leverage we can use on ‘em?”

“Financial trouble, due to paying a New York law firm and a private investigator to help find their daughter – they were middle class prior to this. If the situation spirals, they could lose their house.”

“Buy tha mortgage. They keep their house. Use one o’ yer sock puppet companies so it can’t be traced back t’ me or ya.”

“Are they to be left undisturbed?”

“Yeah. If they can’t afford tha house, make somethin’ up so that they can. Main thing – I want ‘er apartment sealed as-is. Get yer team t’ clean out tha perishables – but get pictures first. I want tha scents preserved, so put tha buildin’ on lock-down.”

“Now that I have a clear view of the situation, I should have no trouble accomplishing these tasks. I assume Miss Hale is no longer alive?”

Victor stopped pacing and fell silent. He moved to stand at the fireplace and watched the flames with his free hand leaning on the bare mantel. “She’s dead – might give ya tha long ugly story some other day.”

“When you are ready, my friend, or never – I will take care of the details as you wish. Try to rest.”

Victor grunted at him and hung up. When a knock sounded at his suite doors, he growled. “What?”

“Sir,” the cook’s voice called through the door, “you wanted to be told when Mr. Yahalom arrived with your shipment? He’s here.”

~ ~ ~

Firelight flickered on the garish carved wooden masks that crowded on their stands along the mantel. Most of the other items were scattered on the table. Victor sat in one of the chairs at the table and held the crystal box on his palm. The golden lock of curling hair was a dull brass in the dim light away from the fire.

He rose and moved to the fireplace. For one moment, he thought about throwing it into the fire. A breath later, he set it with care at the center of the mantel.

“Time t’ be tha ghost ya are, darlin’. Cling an’ rail if ya want, but this ol’ beast’s battered head has seen far worse than ya.” He moved away to lie down on the bed. “Wish I coulda saved ya ... but yer gone. Gonna go on, gonna do what I do, an’ one day ... I won’t remember yer name.”

~ ~ ~

In his sleep, he held her and they mated with passion and heat, over and over, until they could barely breathe. She looked at him with warmth as he moved to embrace her, his hands closing around her neck.

“No…” he muttered, twisting the sheet tighter around him. “No… I’ll keep ya safe … keep ya…” His hands gripped, twisted, snapped – and her lifeless body sank against him. He screamed at himself not to do it, even as he did it again.

Her smile was warm.

The hands gripped.

Her scent welcomed him, soothed him…

The neck snapped.

“Bonnie!” he shouted, and woke with a start, claws tearing through to the mattress. Sitting up, he let his head sink into the hands that had taken her away from him. “I had t’, I promised. It was quick…”

Even as the whispered words left his lips, he knew that this torment wouldn’t be quick.

He heard his voice in his head: _I’ll keep ya with me, keep ya safe…_ His body slumped as his hands fell into his lap. “No, yer gone… Bonnie…”

 

**FINI.**

 

(Sabretooth will return in _Redemption_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It may be weird that I wrote part 1 of this Sabretooth series after I wrote "Redemption", but I had to wrap my head around how to expand the existing comics into a fan fiction story that didn’t have to cut away where Marvel made Mr. Dan Jolley stop. I’ve actually already written quite a few chapters, and in some cases whole story parts, of this series prior to this part 1, as I go where my muse leads me. Most of them need an edit run, though. Also, having found a few more typos, I’m currently running an edit on some of those other stories as well. Bonnie Hale is a driving obsession for my Victor Creed throughout this series, but the majority of the series is going to pair Victor with Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man. I have fallen in love with the Victor/Tony pairing, and weirdly, it works. Thanks to the helpful suggestion of a wonderful reader, Canucklehead Cowgirl, I’m going to call my Victor/Tony ship “IronTooth”.
> 
> In "Redemption", Tabitha Smith ends up being Victor’s version of a messy rebound, and in "Blood Song", Victor will be exploring what Bonnie really was to him and what she did to/for him, whether he likes it or not. Also, his run with Tony Stark gets rolling in that story. "Cutting Edge", is full-tilt Victor/Tony, and then on it goes. I hope you will stay with me through the wild ride yet to come in this series, and thanks for reading! - AnonGrimm (@MET_Fic)


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